3Xio.m 
Si  Hs 


/^///  y 


STATE  OF  THE  UNION. 


SPEECH  OF  HON.  WM.  E.  SIMMS, 

O  F  K  E  N  T  UCKY, 

Delivered  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  February  9,  1861. 


The  House  bavins  under  consideration  the  report  from  the  select  committee  of  thirty-three— 

Mr.  SIMMS  said: 

Mr.  Speaker:  The  history  of  the  world  furnishes  but  few  instances  where  men,  exercising 
high  public  trusts,  have  turned  from  the  seductions  of  power  and  place,  and  subordinated  to 
the  public  good  every  selfish  ambition. 

There  have  been  such  instances,  sir;  and  whenever  or  wherever  this  noblest  of  public  vir¬ 
tues  has  been  displayed,  the  historian  has  recorded  the  act ;  and  that  act  itself  was  immortality. 
Time  and  revolution  may  work  the  disruption  and  overthrow  of  empires,  effacing  them  from 
the  map  of  nations ;  but  neither  time  nor  revolution  can  impair  the  imperishable  deeds  of  patri¬ 
otism  that  will  ever  cluster  around  their  history.  While  we  may  thus  be  encouraged  to  act 
upon  this  occasion  by  the  example  of  the  good  and  great  of  every  age  and  country,  let  us  not 
forget  that,  even  among  men,  ingratitude  has  ever  been  esteemed  the  most  unpardonable  of  all 
moral  wrongs.  No  society  has  ever  undertaken  to  prescribe  penalties  for  this  offense.  Its 
punishment  has  been  fixed  in  the  universal  execration  of  all  mankind. 

If  such,  sir,  be  the  character  of  “man’s  ingratitude  to  man,”  what  must  be  the  moral  turpi¬ 
tude  of  this  offense  when  it  rises  to  the  dignity  of  a  nation’s  guilt,  not  only  towards  all  man¬ 
kind  but  against  high  Heaven  itself?  From  the  day, sir,  your  fathers  and  mine  left  the  shores 
of  the  Old  World,  severing  the  ties  of  kindred,  and  looking  for  the  last  time  upon  the  land 
that  gave  them  birth,  a  kind  and  ever-watchful  Providence  seems  to  have  held  not  only  their 
destiny,  but  also  that  of  their  children  after  them,  in  the  very  hollow  of  His  hand.  From  a 
few  wandering  exiles  in  this  then  western  wilderness,  menaced  by  dangers  within  and  without, 
seeking  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a  Government  upon  the  eternal  principles  of  justice  and 
equality,  in  a  few  short  years  we  have,  as  if  by  magic,  sprung  forward  in  the  very  front  rank 
of  the  nations  of  the  earth.  Over  this  vast  continent  we  could  cast  ,our  eyes,  and  calculate  at 
no  distant  period  when  its  every  river  and  sea  would  become  the  channels  of  our  trade  and 
commerce;  when  its  every  hill  and  valley  would  bear  the  impress  of  our  civilization,  and 
echo  to  the  sound  of  our  industry;  and  thus  standing,  sir,  with  the  eyes  of  the  world  upon  us 
with  the  impulses  of  every  generous  heart  with  us,  with  the  glories  of  the  past  around  us,  and 
the  hopes  of  the  future  before  us,  we  are  now  about  to  dash  this  bright  vision  to  the  earth, 
insult  with  ingratitude  the  God  of  our  fathers,  and  sink  all  that  is  ours,  and  all  that  might  be 
ours,  in  the  mournful  ruins  of  a  dismembered  nationality.  Nor,  sir,  is  this  enough.  The 
blackest  crime  in  the  annals  of  human  guilt  must  yet  be  added  to  make  complete  tkis  last  sad 
chapter  in  our  history.  War,  sir,  civil  war,  with  all  its  untold  horrors,  must  close  the  scene. 
Sir,  the  time  will  come  when  the  events  of  this  day  will  rise  up  in  judgment  against  the 
guilty  of  this  hour. 

And,  sir,  standing  in  the  very  presence  of  events  so  momentous  as  these,  what  has  been  the 
conduct  of  the  dominant  party  upon  this  floor?  Sir,  I  charge,  in  the  presence  of  this  House 
and  I  defy  contradiction,  that  there  has  not  been  a  day,  nor  an  hour,  since  this  Congress  met5 
when  it  was  not  within  the  power  of  the  Republican  party  to  have  reached  forth  their* hand  and 
save  the  Republic.  And^yet,  with  the  very  destiny  of  the  nation  in  thtir  hands,  and  a  respon¬ 
sibility  so  high,  so  sacred, 'resting  upon  them,  they  have  closed  their  ears  to  every  appeal  of 
justice,  have  spit  upon  every  proposition  of  peace  and  conciliation,  have  seen  the  Union  crum¬ 
ble  to  pieces  at  their  very  feet,  and  heard  its  very  heart-strings  break,  one  by  one;  and  now  at 
this  very  moment,  standing  as  they  do  upon  the  ruins  of  a  dismembered  Government,  they 
meet  the  discontents  of  the  land  only  with  the  threats  ef  power  and  slaughter.  And  for  this 
strange  and  unnatural  conduct,  what  plea  of  justification  has  been  made?  This,  sir,  and  this 
only  :  “  The  Chicago  platform  must  be  maintained.”  Party  allegiance  is  thus  made  of  higher 
obligation  than  love  of  country.  The  Constitution  is  nothing  ;  the  Union  is  nothing  ;  all  must 
be  offered  up  upon  the  altar  of  party.  Sir,  shall  the  destiny  of  this  Government  turn  upon 
the  mere  cast  of  a  party  die  ?  Shall  it  be  raffled  away  ? 


9 


2 


What  is  party  or  party  power?  We  are  here,  to-day,  fretting  out  a  brief  existence,  and 
strutting  upon  the  stage  of  life ;  to-morrow  we  may  be  “  food  for  worms,”  when  “  two  paces 
of  the  vilest  earth  ”  will  be  room  enough.  But  our  actions — these  will  live  after  us,  and  prove 
to  the  world  whether  we  ever  deserved  to  live  at  all,  and  whether  we  have  not  been  more  of  a 
curse  than  a  blessing  in  our  age  and  generation.  Sir,  is  this  Chicago  platform  to  be  main¬ 
tained,  because  it  embodies  the  very  essence  of  the  Constitution  and  the  very  principles  upon 
which  the  Government  was  founded?  Sir,  I  charge  that  the  leading  and  vital  principle  of 
that  platform  is  in  direct  violation  of  the  Constitution,  and  that  that  principle,  in  its  application 
to  the  public  policy  of  this  country,  has  worked  the  disruption  of  the  Government.  It  asserts 
the  power,  coupled  with  the  duty,  on  the  part  of  the  national  Congress,  to  exclude  slavery 
from  every  inch  of  the  common  Territories  of  the  United  States.  Congress  has  no  such  power, 
and  tliatquestion  has  been  determined  by  thehighest  judicial  tribunalknown  to  this  Government, 

Here  is  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  rendered  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  upon  this  very 
point.  Referring  to  the  act  of  Congress  prohibiting  slavery  north  of  the  line  of  36°  30',  known 
as  the  Missouri  restriction,  the  court  said  : 

“  Upon  ihese  considerations,  it  is  the  opinion  of  the  court  that  the  act  of  Congress  which  prohibited  a  citizen  from 
holding  and  owning  property  of  this  kind  [slave  properly]  in  the  Territories  of  the  United  States  north  of  the  line 
therein  mentioned,  is  not  warranted  by  the  Constitution,  and  is  therefore  void." 

The  people  of  the  southern  States,  in  insisting  upon  their  right  to  enter  with  their  slave 
property  the  common  Territories  of  the  United  States,  and  in  protesting  against  this  principle 
in  your  party  platform  that  would  exclude  them,  have  asked  and  demanded  nothing  that  is 
not  guarantied  to  them  by  the  Constitution.  Can  this  Union  be  maintained  by  violating  the 
Constitution?  Did  not  the  Constitution  form  the  Union?  Can  there  be  any  Union  when 
the  Constitution  is  destroyed?  The  Republican  party  insist  upon  a  palpable  violation  of  the 
Constitution,  and  yet  claim  to  be  the  friends  and  defenders  of  the  Union.  They  have 
worked  a  disruption  of  the  Government,  and  now  propose  to  use  the  Army  and  Navy  of  the 
United  States  to  murder  and  butcher  others  for  the  wrong  and  injustice  they  themselves  have 
done.  Of  all  the  crimes,  sir,  that  have  ever  been  perpetrated  in  the  name  of  liberty  and  law, 
this  is  the  most  unblushing.  Upon  their  heads  rests  alone  the  responsibility  of  overthrowing 
Uhe  Republic;  and  history,  impartial  history,  will  so  record  it. 

But,  sir,  to  waive  the  constitutional  right  of  the  South  in  this  controversy,  and  rest  the 
whole  question  upon  the  principles  of  eternal  justice,  as  between  man  and  man,  and  man 
and  God,  what  higher  right  have  you  of  the  North  to  Ifcter  the  common  Territories  of  the 
Union  with  your  property  than  the  people  of  the  South?  Was  it  alone  acquired  by  your 
blood  and  treasure?  No,  sir.  Have  you  exclusive  privileges,  as  American  citizens,  under 
the  Constitution?  No,  sir.  From  what  source  of  power,  then,  do  you  derive  this  exclusive 
right?  From  the  Constitution?  No,  sir.  You  claim  it  alone  from  the  source  of  sectional 
popular  power,  in  direct  violation  of  the  Constitution.  Do  you  affect  amazement  that  the 
South  should  protest  against  this,  and  that  discontent  should  fill  the  land  ?  Is  it  the  mere 
territory  you  demand,  and  the  last  dollar  of  its  value  you  seek  ?  Then  why  not  accept  the 
proposition  of  adjustment  submitted  by  Mr.  Crittenden?  North  of  36°  30'  there  are  one 
million  six  hundred  thousand  square  miles  of  territory,  while  south  of  it  there  are  only  two 
hundred  and  seventy  thousand  square  miles.  From  the  most  reliable  estimates  in  the  De¬ 
partment,  the  territory  north  of  this  line  is  worth  twenty  times  as  much  as  that  south  of  the 
line.  You  thus  get,  by  this  division,  nineteen  out  of  every  twenty  dollars  of  its  aggregate 
value  in  money  ;  and  five  out  of  every  six  acres  of  its  actual  area.  Does  your  sense  ot  jus¬ 
tice  demand  more  than  this?  You  will  scarcely  have  the  courage  to  look  an  honest  man  in 
the  face,  and  demand  more.  Why,  then,  reject  the  proposition?  You  reply  that  the  Crit¬ 
tenden  proposition  proposes  to  recognize  and  protect  slavery  south  of  the  line;  that,  in  this 
respect,  it  proposes  to  incorporate  the  principles  of  the  Breckinridge  platform,  to  that  extent, 
in  the  Constitution;  and  rather  than  submit  to  that,  you  will  overthrow  the  Government. 

The  proposition  of  Mr.  Crittenden  proposes  to  incorporate  the  principles  of  no  party 
platform  in  the  Constitution  south  of  that  line.  It  only  proposes  to  incorporate,  in  terms 
more  clear  and  distinct,  the  principles  of  the  Constitution  itself  as  it  now  exists,  and  as  they 
have  been  determined  and  expounded  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  As  a 
set-off  to  this,  does  it  not  also  propose  to  incorporate  the  principles  of  the  Chicago  platform 
in  the  Constitution,  north  of  that  line,  so  far  as  the  exclusion  of  slavery  from  that  territory 
is  concerned?  Is  it  unreasonable,  in  an  adjustment  of  difficulties  upon  which  hinges  the 
very  destiny  of  the  Republic  between  the  contending  sections,  that  the  principles  of  the  Con¬ 
stitution,  as  now  expounded  by  the  courts,  should  be  clearly  defined  in  relation  to  the  terri¬ 
tory  south  of  that  line;  when,  by  this  same  proposition,  a  new  principle,  in  direct  violation 
of  the  Constitution  as  now  expounded,  is  to  be  incorporated  in  the  Constitution  for  the  gov¬ 
ernment  of  five-sixths  of  the  whole  territory  of  the  United  States  north  of  that  line?  By 
the  principles  of  this  proposed  adjustment,  the  South  gains  nothing  except  a  mere  definition 

« 


3 

f  their  rights  to  one-sixth  of  the  territory  which  exists  to-day  in  the  whole  public  domain 
under  the  Constitution,  without  amendment ;  while  the  North  gains  the  establishment  of  a 
new  principle  for  their  exclusive  benefit  in  five-sixths  of  the  whole  territory,  where  to-day 
that  exclusive  right  does  not  exist  under  the  Constitution  unamended  in  one  single  inch  of 
it.  This  proposition  can  have  in  it  but  one  feature  to  commend  it  to  the  approval  of  the 
South,  and  that  is  this:  it  proposes  an  everlasting  settlement  of  this  long-contested  issue  be¬ 
tween  the  North  and  the  South;  it  proposes  peace,  now  and  forever,  upon  this  vexed  question. 

In  that  spirit  alone  have  we  signified  a  willingness  to  accept  it.  By  it,  we  are  surrendering 
our  rights  of  equality  in  five-sixths  of  the  whole  public  domain,  in  order  that  we  may  have 
quiet  and  repose  in  that  barren  region  which  may  remain  to  us.  And,  sir,  will  this  proposi¬ 
tion  be  accepted  by  the  North  ?  We  have  yet  to  see  the  first  evidence  of  that  character  upon 
this  floor?  And  why  ? 

Mr.  STANTON.  I  would  reply,  that  slaveholding  civilization  is  not  a  desirable  form  of 
civilization ;  that  it  ought  not  to  be  extended;  and  I  will  not  force  it  upon  any  people  against 
their  will.  If  the  people  of  any  portion  of  these  United  States,  few  or  many,  in  any  Terri¬ 
tory,  do  not  desire  the  establishment  of  slavery  among  them,  I  will  never  vote  to  impose  it 
upon  them.  Again,  I  would  not  vote  for  the  Crittenden  proposition,  because  it  includes 
within  it  all  future  acquisitions;  that  is,  the  whole  Republic  of  Mexico,  and  South  America, 
perhaps;  and,  through  its  instrumentality,  the  slaveholding  power  of  the  Confederacy  would 
ultimately  control  the  Government. 

Mr.  SIMMS.  Would  you  vote  for  the. Crittenden  proposition  with  the  clause  in  reference 
to  future  acquisitions  stricken  out? 

Mr.  STANTON.  I  have  answered  that  proposition  already.  I  would  not.  If  slavery  is 
established  in  the  Territory  of  New  Mexico  and  Arizona,  all  future  acquisitions,  whether  their 
status  is  fixed  now  or  not,  will  follow  the  condition  of  the  contiguous  territory  ;  so  that  if  you 
now  settle,  by  constitutional  provision  or  by  law,  that  those  Territories  shall  be  slaveholding 
Territories,  you  practically  establish  the  proposition  that  all  future  acquisitions,  attached  and 
contiguous  to  them,  shall  be  slaveholding  Territories  and  States. 

Mr.  SIMMS.  The  distinguished  gentleman  from  Ohio  has  answered  my  question  just  as 
I  expected.  It  is  hostility  to  the  institution  of  slavery.  He  has  answered  it  as  his  colleague 
who  has  just  addressed  this  House  would  have  answered  it;  and  to  know  how  he  would 
have  answered  it,  it  is  enough  to  s^  that  he  beat  Joshua  R.  Giddings  for  Congress,  upon 
the  ground  that  he  (Giddings)  was  flrot  sound  upon  the  abolition  question.  Who,  sir,  ever 
desired  to  force  slavery  upon  an  unwilling  people?  If  we  of  the  South  should  assume  that 
position,  we  would  be  as  radically  wrong  as  the  Republicans,  who  now  insist  that  we  shall 
not  have  slavery  where  we  want  it  in  the  common  Territories. 

The  gentleman’s  other  objections  land  him  exactly  where  he  was  at  the  beginning,  dead 
against  every  proposition  of  adjustment  that  does  not  amount  to  a  total  exclusion  of  slavery 
from  every  inch  of  territory  now  belonging  to  the  United  States.  It  will  be  remembered, 
too,  that  the  gentleman  is  one  of  the  most  conservative  members  of  his  party  upon  this  floor. 

In  his  speech,  delivered  a  few  days  since,  he  denied,  as  I  understood  him,  that  there  could 
be  any  such  thing  as  property  in  man. 

Mr.  STANTON.  I  hope  the  gentleman  will  not  pass  from  this  point  in  the  discussion  in 
reference  to  the  position  taken  by  me  in  a  former  speech  without  permitting  me  to  correct  him. 

Mr.  SIMMS.  Have  I  mistaken  your  position? 

Mr.  STANTON.  Certainly. 

Mr.  SIMMS.  Then  you  shall  correct  me. 

Mr.  STANTON.  I  certainly  never  intended  to  be  understood,  and  I  never  said,  that 
slaves  were  not  property  in  the  States,  by  virtue  of  whose  laws  and  usages  they  were  recog¬ 
nized  as  slaves.  I  did  say  that,  according  to  my  construction  of  the  Constitution,  it  did  not 
recognize  slavery  beyond  the  territorial  limits  ot  the  States  by  virtue  of  whose  laws  and 
usages  slavery  was  established.  That  is  my  position. 

Mr.  SIMMS.  You  do  not  now  say  that  there  can  be  such  a  thing  as  property  in  man, 
even  in  the  States  where  slavery  exists ;  you  only  say  that,  in  your  judgment,  the  Constitution 
does  not  recognize  such  property  beyond  the  limits  of  the  State  tolerating  it.  You  and  the 
Supreme  Court  differ  upon  this  point,  materially ;  and  as  you  and  your  party  are,  at  this 
time,  very  anxious  to  enforce  the  laws,  even  to  the  extermination  of  the  people  of  the  sece¬ 
ding  States,  I  call  upon  you  to  regard  the  obligation  of  this  law,  that  will  be  less  bloodless,  if 
not  less  painful,  to  your  conscience  in  its  requirements.  Here  is  the  law,  as  expounded  by 
the  Supreme  Court  ;  not  a  law  passed  by  Congress,  but  the  law  of  the  Constitution  you  have 
sworn  to  support : 

“  Now,  as  we  have  already  said,  in  an  earlier  part  of  this  opinion,  upon  a  different  point,  the  right  of  property  in  a 
slave  is  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed  in  the  Constitution.  And  no  word  can  be  found  in  the  Constitution  which  gives 
Congress  a  greater  power  over  slave  property,  or  which  entitles  property  of  thut  kind  to  lets  protection  than  propem 
of  any  other  description.” 


4 


This,  sir,  is  the  language  of  the  Supreme  Court,  declaring  that  the  right  of  property  in  slaves 
is  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed  in  the  Constitution.  I  have  already  shown  that  the  court 
declared  the  Missouri  restriction  unconstitutional,  because  li  excluded  slavery  from  any  part 
of  the  Territories  of  the  United  States.  This,  I  should  think,  would  settle  this  point.  Will 
the  gentleman,  then,  enforce  this  law  ?  No,  sir ;  he  and  his  party,  when  it  comes  to  enforc¬ 
ing  laws  recognizing  and  protecting  the  rights  of  the  people  of  the  South  in  the  common 
territories,  immediately  fall  back  upon  their  allegiance  to  that  “higher  law  than  the  Consti¬ 
tution,”  which  means  practically  that  all  laws  and  constitutional  provisions  in  favor  of  the 
rights  of  the  people  of  the  South  are  void,  according  to  their  consciences,  and  shall  not,  there¬ 
fore,  be  enforced.  Their  idea  of  enforcing  the  laws  is,  that  all  that  operate  against  the  South 
shall  be  enforced,  even  if  it  hangs  the  last  man  of  them  ;  while  all  that  operate  in  their  favor 
shall  be  omitted  in  the  enforcing  list. 

But  again  :  if  the  Constitution  does  not  recognize  property  in  slaves  beyond  the  limits  of 
the  slave  States,  why  did  the  Government  of  the  United  States  undertake  to  protect  this  spe¬ 
cies  of  property  lor  twenty  years  upon  the  high  seas,  after  it  was  organized  by  an  express  pro¬ 
vision  ol  the  Constitution  guarantying  the  African  slave  trade?  Why  insert  the  clause  in 
the  Constitution  requiring  a  rendition  of  fugitives  from  service,  to  be  returned  by  the  non¬ 
slaveholding  States?  If  the  position  of  the  gentleman  be  true,  the  momenta  slave  places 
his  foot  upon  the  soil  of  Ohio,  the  right  of  property  vested  by  the  local  law  of  Kentucky 
ceases.  If  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  does  not  recognize  his  right  of  property, 
the  laws  of  Ohio  certainly  do  not.  The  laws  of  Kentucky  do  not  operate  in  Ohio  ;  under 
what  law  or  principle  can  he  be  reclaimed?  This  position  of  the  gentleman  brings  the  Can¬ 
ada  shores  to  the  borders  of  the  Ohio  river. 

Mr.  Speaker,  it  would  be  agreeable  to  continue  this  running  debate,  as  it  is  by  far  the  most 
certain  method  of  arriving  at  the  truth  ;  and  that  alone  I  seek  in  this  discussion;  as  by  it,  I 
am  willing  that  the  South  may  stand  or  fall,  not  only  in  the  judgment  of  men,  but  before  the 
great  tribunal  of  that  unerring  Judge,  at  whose  bar  we  must  all  at  last  appear.  But  there 
are  other  vital  issues  to  which  I  wish  to  refer  within  the  time  allowed  me  by  the  rules  of 
the  House. 

I  will  say,  in  conclusion  upon#this  point  for  the  present,  and  I  challenge  contradiction  in 
this  House,  that  nine-tenths  of  the  Republican  party  who  have  addressed  this  committee  du¬ 
ring  this  discussion  and  during  the  last  session  of  Congress,  have  denied,  unconditionally, 
that  there  can  be  any  such  thing  as  property  in  mau.  T||s,  sir,  is  the  position  of  the  Repub¬ 
lican  party  upon  this  question,  as  declared  by  its  representative  men  upon  this  floor,  and  in 
the  other  end  of  the  Capitol.  This  position  strikes  not  only  at  the  question  of  slavery  in  the 
States,  but  wherever  else  it  may  exist.  If  this  proposition  be  true,  the  tenure  by  which  the 
people  of  the  southern  Stales  hold  their  $4,000,000,000  worth  of  slave  property,  will  dissolve 
that  very  moment  when  the  courts  of  this  country  are  to  be  infected  with  this  diseased  pub¬ 
lic  sentiment. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  now  approach  the  main  and  vital  point  involved  in  this  contest — the  point 
upon  which  this  whole  matter  must  hinge  now  and  hereafter.  And  that  point  is  this:  Who 
are  responsible  for  the  calamities  that  have  befallen  the  country  ?  Who  have  imperiled  its, 
peace  and  duration?  Who,  in  the  final  account  in  history,  in  the  judgment  of  men,  and  be¬ 
fore  high  Heaven,  must  incur  the  sentence  of  guilt? 

Sir,  whatever  may  have  been  the  crimes  of  nations  or  men,  none  have  been  so  hardy  or 
unblushing  as  to  admit  their  perpetration  from  an  inherent  love  of  wrong  and  injustice;  nor 
will  this  ever  be  the  case  while  conscience  and  virtue  hold  in  their  hands  the  rod  of  remorse 
to  whip  us  around  the  world.  While  I  admit  that,  in  most  matters  of  controversy  between 
men,  all  right  is  not  on  one  side,  and  all  wrong  on  the  other,  yet  I  maintain,  in  the  main  and 
vital  issues  as  now  existing  between  the  different  sections  of  the  country,  that  the  present  dis¬ 
content  in  the  minds  of  the  people  of  the  South  has  been  caused  solely  by  the  unjustifiable 
attacks  of  the  anti-slavery  party  of  the  North  upon  their  rights  under  this  Government. 

Sir,  these  causes  of  discontent  have  not  existed  merely  for  a  day  or  a  year.  They  do  no-t 
alone  relate  to  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  his  friends  allege.  They  have  been  accumu¬ 
lating  and  gathering  strength,  and  assuming  moie  dangerous  and  alarming  forms,  with  every 
advance  in  our  history  ;  until  at  last,  they  have  sapped  the  very  foundations  of  the  Govern¬ 
ment  and  subverted  the  Constitution.  They  consist  of  no  one  act,  but  of  an  aggregation  of 
acts.  They  exist  in  the  character,  history,  object,  and  purpose  of  the  anti-slavery  organiza¬ 
tion  of  the  free  States.  They  sprung  from  religious  bigotry,  self-righteousness,  fanaticism, 
demagoguery,  and  a  general  desire  on  the  part  of  that  party  to  intermeddle  with  the  affairs  of 
others,  to  the  neglect  of  their  own.  They  first  revealed  themselves  in  this  House  more  limn 
forty  years  ago,  in  the  character  of  abolition  petitions,  praying  that  slavery  might  be  abol¬ 
ished  in  this  District.  From  that  day  to  this,  the  whole  South  have  united  in  one  voice  of 
protest  against  the  agitation  of  this  question  of  slavery  in  the  national  Congress.  These 


5 

protests  have  not  been  regarded  ;  and  the  resnlt  is,  that  we  to-day  behold  the  fruits  of  this 
agitation  in  a  dismembered  Union. 

Now,  sir,  I  propose  to  discuss  these  issues  frankly.  I  propose  to  discuss  the  principles  of 
the  Republican  party,  as  proclaimed  by  themselves  upon  this  floor,  as  proclaimed  by  their 
President  elect,  and  as  illustrated  by  their  votes  in  this  House.  And  to  this  end,  I  shall  ad¬ 
dress  myselt  to  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  of  this  Chamber. 

Now,  sir,  in  plain  words,  in  honest  words — without  any  circumlocution  of  logic  or  party 
evasions,  mental  reservations,  or  anything  else  that  makes  up  the  capital  stock  in  trade  of 
small  politicians,  trimmers,  demagogues,  hypocrites,  mongrels,  or  enthusiasts,  cither  North  or 
South,  East  or  West — what  are  the  real  issues  between  the  anti-slavery  party  of  the  free 
States,  which  is  t lie  dominant  party  in  those  States,  and  the  people  of  the  South?  What 
are  the  causes  of  Southern  discontent?  Who  is  right  ?  Who  is  wrong  ?  Let  the  truth,  the 
whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  be  told,  and  “let  justice  be  done,  if  the  heavens  fall.” 
If  the  South  is  in  the  wrong,  let  her  fall.  I  will  claim  for  her  no  quarter,  no  extenuation.  If 
right,  let  her  stand  forever  by  the  right.  If  the  North  be  wrong,  let  her  recede.  It  is  more 
just  that  she  should  abandon  the  wrong,  than  that  the  South  should  surrender  the  right? 

1.  The  plain  issue,  then,  is  this:  Domestic  slavery  exists  in  the  southern  States.  It  did 
exist  in  all  the  colonies  when  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  declared.  It  existed  in 
twelve  out  of  thirteen  States  when  the  present  Union  was  formed.  The  northern  States  that 
were  parties  to  the  original  compact,  abolished  it  by  selling  their  slaves  to  the  people  of  the 
southern  States.  The  people  of  the  southern  States  claim  the  right  of  property  in  their 
slaves;  and  claim  that  this  right  is  affirmed  in  the  Constitution  by  express  provision.  The 
North  denies  this.  The  South  appeals  to  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court.  The  North 
denounces  the  court  and  spurns  its  decision,  because  it  decided  against  them.  The  South  then 
inquires  whether  the  North  regarded  slaves  as  property,  when,  for  twenty  years,  by  an  express 
provision  in  the  Constitution,  (made  irrepealable  for  their  benefit,)  they  reserved  the  right 
to  import  them  from  Africa,  flooding  the  southern  States  with  them;  selling  them  with  all 
the  muniments  of  title,  and  receiving  a  consideration,  as  the  purchase  price  for  such  property, 
in  dollars  and  cents?  The  North  prefers  to  waive  this  point  in  the  argument ;  memory  is  bad; 
circumstances  alter  cases;  no  more  money  now  to  be  made  out  of  the  African  slave  trade; 
nothing  is  right  or  religious  but  what  will  pay.  The  North — honorable  men,  sincere  men;  we 
are  all  honorable  men,  sincere  men  ;  and  if  not,  it  is  high  time  we  were  trying  to  be — cannot 
understand  how  any  one  can  be  so  stupid  as  not  to  comprehend  that  the  man  who  sold  slaves, 
that  he  then  said  were  property — gave  title  to  them  as  such;  received  the  money  for  them  as 
such  ;  still  retains  the  money  for  them  as  such,  but  which  he  nowsaysare  not  property,  and  never 
were — is  not  a  better  Christian  and  a  more  honest  man  than  the  dupe  who  believed  what  he  said, 
bought  his  property,  and  paid  him  the  money  for  it.  The  South-*honorable  men,  credulous 
men,  plain  men — cannot  understand  how  any  man  at  this  day,  who  sold  slaves  as  property, 
received  the  money  for  them  as  such,  and  still  retains  the  money  for  them  as  such,  caa  assume, 
reasonably,  any  pious  superiority  over  the  one  who  still  retains  the  property  thus  bought  and 
paid  for,  while  this  money  jingles  in  the  seller’s  pocket.  The  South  thinks  that,  if  slavery 
be  a  sin,  they  who  would  have  their  garments  clean,  who  would  stand  acquitted  before  Hea¬ 
ven  and  earth  from  all  complicity  with  it,  cannot  escape  until  they  disgorge  the  price  of  it. 

These,  sir,  are  the  common-sense  views  of  the  people  of  the  South  upon  this  subject.  The 
North  cannot  appreciate  this  style  of  argument.  They  insist  that  common  sense  always  was 
the  enemy  of  metaphysics,  transcendentalism,  and  house-top  righteousness;  and  that  it  is  not 
fair  or  learned  to  dismount  pretentious  logic,  pampered  pride,  and  vainglorious  boast,  with 
plain  and  simple  truth. 

2.  The  people  of  the  South  claim  the  right  to  occupy,  jointly  with  the  people  of  the  North, 
the  common  Territories  of  the  United  States,  and  the  right  to  take  with  them  their  slave  pro¬ 
perty,  and  have  it  protected  there,  when  necessary,  under  the  laws  and  flag  of  a  common  Go¬ 
vernment.  They  claim  that  the  Government  of  the  United  States  was  formed  to  protect 
Avery  right  of  the  American  citizen  to  life,  liberty,  and  property;  that  when  their  fathers  en¬ 
tered  into  the  Federal  compact,  it  was  upon  the  express  condition  that  they  and  their  children 
after  them  were  not  to  be  denied  any  of  the  rights,  immunities,  and  benefits  of  this  common 
Government. 

The  North  makes  no  issue  of  fact  upon  these  propositions;  but  claims  that  slavery  is  in 
violation  of  the  Divine  law  and  natural  rights;  that  it  is  not  recognized  by  the  Constitution; 
that  it  outlaws  the  slaveholder  from  the  common  protection  of  the  Government ;  that  all  men 
are  created  free  and  equal ;  and  if  the  Constitution  recognizes  this  right  of  protection  to  slave 
property  in  the  common  Territories,  they  will  not  regard  it,  recognizing  an  obligation  to  a 
“higher  law  than  the  Constitution,  regulating  their  conduct.” 

3.  The  people  of  the  South  affirm  that  they  have  the  right  to  regulate  their  domestic  in¬ 
stitutions  in  their  own  way  ;  that  they  never  have  interfered  with  the  domestic  institutions  of 


6 

the  North  ;  that  the  people  of  the  northern  States  have  no  just  right  to  assail  their  institutions 
in  the  national  Congress;  no  right  to  assail  them  by  their  press,  their  pulpits,  their  legislative 
acts,  and  their  party  organizations  ;  no  right  to  seek  to  degrade  them  before  the  civilized 
world  ;  that  they  are  entitled  to  domestic  peace;  are  entitled  to  be  secure  in  their  persons  and 
property  against  theft,  lawless  invasion,  and  threatened  insurrection. 

The  North  replies  that  they  do  not  regard  slavery  as  a  desirable  form  of  civilization;  that 
it  is  a  scandal  and  a  blot  upon  our  national  escutcheon,  a  sin,  a  wrong — morally,  socially,  and 
politically ;  and  as  such,  they  will  assail  it  in  the  national  Congress,  in  their  press,  their 
pulpit ;  and  as  such,  they  will  exclude  it  from  the  Territories,  and  place  it  under  the  ban  of 
the  Government.  The  privileges  of  a  free  press  and  free  speech  are  never  to  be  surrendered  ; 
and  by  virtue  of  these  privileges  they  will  establish  in  the  free  State  a  public  sentiment 
hostile  to  it,  whether  it  disturbs  the  domestic  peace,  the  security  of  life,  liberty,  or  property,  of 
the  people  of  the  South,  or  not. 

4.  The  North  affirms  that  slavery  is  a  sin,  and  therefore  the  slaveholder  is  not  a  fit  communi¬ 
cant  of  the  sacraments  of  a  common  religious  faith.  The  southern  Christian  replies,  that  hold¬ 
ing  communion  with  men  who  evade  constitutional  obligations  they  have  assumed  to  perform 
under  the  obligations  of  an  oath,  and  who,  in  the  name  of  Christianity,  undertake  to  shape  a 
public  sentiment  that  eventuates  in  lawless  invasion  of  sister  States,  the  abduction  of  their 
property,  and  the  murder  of  their  citizens,  and  finally  the  subversion  of  the  Government 
itself,  would  not  increase  their  respectability  or  their  happiness  either  in  this  world  6r  the  one 
to  come;  and  hence,  upon  this  point,  they  are  content  to  abandon  all  religious  fellowship ; 
but  while  they  assent  to  this,  they  still  insist  that  when  their  property  is  stolen,  or  their 
fellow-citizens  murdered  upon  their  own  soil,  and  the  offender  flees  to  a  northern  State,  they 
are  entitled  to  the  rendition  of  the  offender,  upon  legal  requisition,  under  the  plain  provision 
of  the  Constitution.  To  this  the  North  replies  :  to  incite  insurrection  or  rebellion  in  others, 
without  invading  the  State  in  person,  is  nothing  but  constructive  crime;  and  to  steal  a  negro 
is  no  crime  at  all ;  and  hence  in  neither  case  will  the  offender  be  surrendered  upon  any 
requisition  whatever. 

5.  The  people  of  the  South  say  that,  since  they  and  the  people  of  the  North  cannot  agree 
as  it  regards  their  respective  rights  in  the  Territories,  they  are  willing  to  refer  the  whole 
question  to  the  Supreme  Court;  and  if  this  is  rejected,  they  are  willing  to  an  equitable 
division  of  the  same,  securing  to  each  section  their  respective  rights  by  constitutional  guar¬ 
antees;  and  if  this  is  rejected,  they  are  willing  to  withdraw  in  peace  from  a  common 
Government,  and  side  by  side  with  the  North  pursue  in  honorable  rivalry  the  great  future 
before  them. 

To  all  these  propositions  the  North  replies,  no.  They  declare  that  they  hold  slavery  to  be 
the  great  dragon  of  the  eajfth,  “the  jsum  of  all  villanies;”  that  it  “must  be  limited  to  its  pre¬ 
sent  bounds;’5  “must  be  ameliorated,  must  be  overthrown  ;”  “  and  must  be  placed  where  the 
public  mind  will  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction ;”  and  to  this 
end  they  will  speak  of  it,  write  of  it,  and  preach  of  it,  as  they  please,  let  the  results  be  what 
they  may.  “You  of  the  South  shall  not  judge  of  your  own  rights  in  this  Government,  nor 
shall  the  Supreme  Court  do  it  for  you.  We  will  not  occupy  jointly  with  you  the  common 
Territories,  nor  will  we  divide  them  with  you.  If  you  desire  domestic  peace,  you  must  sur¬ 
render  slavery.  We  will  not  interfere  with  it  by  legislation  in  the  States  where  it  exists;  but 
while  you  retain  it,  you  shall  neither  live  in  the  Union  in  peace,  nor  shall  you  go  out  of  it  in 
peace;  and  whatever  may  be  the  obligations  of  compacts  or  constitutions,  we  will  not  recog¬ 
nize  it  socially,  morally,  or  politically;  and  to  this  end  we  declare  that*  ‘it  is  the  duty  of  the 
Federal  Government  to  give  freedom  to  every  human  being  and  interdict  slavery  wherever 
Congress  has  the  constitutional  power  to  legislate  on  the  subject.’  And  further  that  no  more 
slave  States  shall  ever  be  admitted  into  this  Union;  and,  while  we  thus  develop  free  institu¬ 
tions,  and  organize  and  admit  additional  free  States,  as  a  necessary'consequence,  we  will,  to 
that  extent,  destroy  the  power  of  the  slave  States,  by  surrounding  them  with  hostile  commu¬ 
nities  to  assail  their  institutions;  and  thus  and  in  this  manner  we  will  drive  them  inch  by 
inch  from  their  present  possessions,  until,  ultimately,  the  slave  and  the  slaveholder  will  be 
driven  and  huddled  together  in  the  extreme  South,  where  a  crisis  will  be  reached  and  passed, 
beyond  which  it  cannot  endure.” 

These,  sir,  are  the  issues  between  the  North  and  the  South.  These  are  the  issues  that  have 
worked  a  disruption  of  the  Government;  that  have  rent  asunder  the  ties  of  blood,  kindred, 
and  country.  And  here,  upon  a  mere  statement  of  these  issues,  without  argument  or  com¬ 
ment,  the  South  may  safely  consent  to  rest  her  cause,  to  await  the  impartial  verdict  of  all 
men  and  all  history.  There  never  was  an  issue  in  which  the  right  was  more  clearly  on  one 
side,  and  the  wrong  on  the  other.  Shall  the  right  be  condemned,  and  the  wrong  be  vindi¬ 
cated?  Never!  never!  God  is  just,  sir;  and  His  providence  will  defend  the  right.  Let  us 
not  deceive  ourselves.  We  are  to-day  deliberating  over  the  prostrate  form  of  the  Republic — 


*  Blake's  Abolition  resolution. 


7 

stricken  down  in  the  pride  of  its  strength,  as  the  very  sinews  of  its  manhood  were  nerving 
its  arms  to  grasp  within  their  embrace  the  continent.  Stricken  down  in  the  very  mid-noon 
of  its  glory,  it  lies  at  this  moment  the  prey  of  conspirators  and  evil  counsellors. 

Sir,  the  guilty  cannot  escape  the  responsibility  of  this  terrible  crime  by  shouting,  in  this  Hall, 
treason  !  treason  !  The  very  men,  sir,  who  for  the  last  two  months  have  been  loudest  in  their 
denunciations  of  treason  and  disunion  upon  this  floor,  are  the  very  men  who  have  infused 
into  our  body-politic' the  seeds  of  death.  Anti-slavery  fanaticism  and  its  advocates  have  be¬ 
trayed  the  nation,  and  history  will  so  record  it. 

What,  sir,  are  the  vital  leading  and  controlling  elements  of  the  Republican  organization? 
It  moves,  lives,  and  has  its  being  in  hostility  to  the  domestic  institutions  of  fifteen  States  of 
the  Confederacy. 

1.  It  was  conceived  in  opposition  and  hate  to  slavery.  It  holds  that  slavery  is  the  enemy 
of  the  public  good — is  a  wrong ;  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Government  to  provide  for  the 
general  welfare;  and  in  doing  this,  slavery  must  be  treated  as  a  wrong,  and  must  be  re¬ 
pressed  as  such. 

2.  To  accomplish  this  end,  in  strict  accordance  with  their  construction  of  the  Constitution, 
the  Republican  party  hold,  as  a  cardinal  principle,  that  the  Government  itself  was  organized, 
upon  an  anti-slavery  basis;  and  in  now  seeking  to  place  slavery,  in  the  language  of  their 
President  elect,  “  where  the  public  mind  will  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of 
ultimate  extinction,”  they  are  but  executing  the  original  policy  and  purpose  of  those  who 
formed  the  Government. 

To  accomplish  this  purpose,  and  to  inaugurate  this  policy  on  the  part  of  the  Government, 
they  propose,  first,  to  arrest  the  further  spread  of  slavery  into  the  Territories  of  the  United 
States;  second,  to  deny  to  it  the  countenance  and  protection  of  the  Government  anywhere; 
third,  expand  the  power  of  the  free  States,  so- as  to  give  them  the  complete  control  of  all  the 
departments  of  the  Government;  and,  lastly,  they  propose,  under  the  plea  of  free  speech  and 
a  free  press,  to  attack  it  as  a  crime,  socially,  morally,  and  politically,  in  this  Hall,  in  the 
Senate  Chamber,  upon  the  hustings,  in  their  public  journals,  and  from  their  pulpits;  and 
thus,  by  all  the  appliances  of  popular  power  and  prejudice,  a  hostile  Government,  and  a 
sectional  organization,  they  expect  ultimately  to  accomplish  its  overthrow. 

Mr.  Speaker,  I  have  no  desire  to  misstate  or  misapprehend  the  position  of  the  Republican 
party.  My  object  is  truth  ;  and  if  ever  I  desired  to  utter  it,  or  comprehend  it,  that  is  my 
purpose  now.  The  positions  thus  assumed  by  the  Republican  party  I  charge  to  be  by  far  the 
most  dangerous  and  ultra  ever  assumed  by  any  political  organization  in  this  country,  in 
reference  to  the  long-contested  issues  between  the  North  and  the  South.  The  ultra  Abolitionists 
have  ever  made  war  upon  this  Government,  because,  as  they  declare,  the  Constitution  itself 
sanctions  slavery.  To  overthrow  slavery,  they  have  been  for  an  overthrow  of  the  Constitu¬ 
tion.  To  this  end  they  have  declared  it  to  be  “  a  convenant  with  death,  and  an  agreement 
with  hell.”  They  have  never  contended  that  slavery  could  be  overthrown  until  the  Constitu¬ 
tion  sanctioning  it  was  overthrown.  But  the  Republican  party  assume  that  the  Constitution 
was  formed  to  work  its  ultimate  extinction  ;  and  hence,  in  inaugurating  a  policy  to  that  end, 
the  result  may  be  accomplished  within  the  forms  of  the  Constitution.  It  will  thus  be  seen 
that  the  Republican  party,  and  the  ultra  Abolitionists  that  vote  with  them,  seek  the  same 
end,  differing  only  as  to  the  method  by  which  it  is  to  be  accomplished.  Which  of  these 
positions  is  the  most  insidious  and  dangerous  to  the  institutions  of  the  South?  The  first 
invokes  the  powers  of  the  Federal  Government  to  the  accomplishment  of  this  end ;  the  other 
admits  that  the  Government  was  ordained  in  confirmation  of  slavery. 

But, sir,  is  it  true  that  this  Government  was  established  upon  principles  looking  to  the  ulti¬ 
mate  extinction  of  slavery  ?  If  so,  why  was  the  first  clause  of  the  ninth  section  of  the  first 
article  of  the  Constitution  inserted  in  that  instrument? 

“The  migration  or  importation  of  such  persons  as  any  of  the  S  ales  n  >w  existii.g  shall  think  proper  to  admit,  shall 
not  He  prohibited  by  the  Congress  prior  to  the  year  ISOS 

Did  the  framers  of  the  Government  expect  to  accomplish  the  ultimate  extinction  of  slavery 
by  guarantying  the  foreign  African  slave  trade  to  all  the  thirteen  original  States,  for  a  period 
of  twenty  years,  by  this  clause  in  the  Constitution  ?  Did  the  members  of  the  constitutional 
convention  from  Massachusetts  and  other  northern  abolition  States  understand  this  to  be  the 
policy  and  object  of  the  Government,  when  they  insisted  upon,  and  passed  by  their  votes,  this 
provision  in  the  Constitution;  and  not  only  this,  but  made  it  irrepealable  by  even  the  people 
themselves  for  this  period  of  twenty  years?  Was  the  ultimate  extinction  of  slavery  to  be 
accomplished  by  flooding  the  States  with  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  foreign  Africans 
for  this  period  of  time  ?  Were  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  so  ignorant  of  the  means  of 
accomplishing  this  end,  of  the  ultimate, extinction  of  slavery,  by  adopting,  as  a  means  to  that 
end,  the  increase  of  the  very  thing  they  sought  to  destroy  ? 

No,  sir;  such  a»n  idea  and  such  a  policy  never  was  entertained  by  the  men  who  framed 


this  Government  and  established  this  Union.  That  idea  and  that  policy  is  an  invention  of 
northern  fanaticism  ;  and  to  invest  it  with  more  power  to  work  out  its  mission  of  wrong  and 
injustice,  its  advocates  have  sought  to  pervert  the  truth  of  history  to  the  consummation  of 
this  base  end  of  abolition  madness.  Not  content  with  this,  they  have  sought  to  implicate  the 
very  men  who  made  this  Government  as  the  first  original  conspirators,  who  established  a 
policy  destructive  of  its  peace,  fraternity,  and  duration.  Sir,  no  forms  of  party  tactics,  or 
honeyed  phraseology,  can  conceal  from  the  people  of  the  South  the  certain  and  approaching 
dangers  with  which  they  are  menaced  by  this  insidious  policy.  It  will  be  vain  for  the  advocates 
of  this  policy  on  the  other  side  of  this  Hall  to  rise  in  their  places  and  say  that  they  do  not 
propose  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States,  when,  in  the  very  next  breath,  they  tell  us  that 
the  leading  and  cardinal  purpose  of  their  party  organization  is  to  re-establish  the  ancient 
policy  of  the  Government,  which,  as  they  avow,  looks  to  the  ultimate  extinction  of  slavery 
everywhere.  How  is  this  ultimate  extinction  to  be  accomplished  ?  Will  it  work  its  own 
overthrow  without  the  intervention  of  the  Government?  If  so,  what  necessity  can  there  be 
in  organizing  a  party  that  merely  looks  to  this  end,  without  any  intention  of  invoking  the 
powers  of  the  Federal  Government  to  accomplish  it. 

Sir,  beneath  this  declaration  not  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  exists  by 
direct  legislation  lurks  the  insidious  intent  to  lull  the  apprehensions  of  the  people  of  the  South 
until  they  shall  be  powerless  in  all  the  departments  of  the  Government  to  resist  the  ultimate 
fate  in  preparation  for  them.  Now,  gentlemen  of  the  Republican  party,  you  say  you  do  not 
propose  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States  by  direct  legislation.  How  grateful  the  people 
of  the  South  should  feel  for  this  wonderful  condescension.  And  how  gladly  some  few  gentle¬ 
men  from  the  South  have  availed  themselves  of  this  declaration  to  become  your  apologists 
upon  this  floor,  and  in  that  way,  through  their  speeches,  speak  in  your  behalf  a  good  word  to 
their  constituents.  Be  kind  to  them,  gentlemen  of  the  North.  They  are  merely  lingering 
upon  the  brink.  No  one  can  tell  where  the  next  turn  of  political  fortune  may  land  them. 
But  answer  me  this  plain  question  :  have  the  extreme  Abolitionists  of  the  Phillips  and  Garrison 
school  ever  contended  that  slavery  in  the  States  could  be  interfered  with  by  Congress,  without 
violating  the  Constitution  ?  When  you  propose  not  to  do  what  the  extreme  Abolitionists 
have  never  claimed  could  be  done,  how  much  more  conservative  are  you  than  they  upon  this 
subject?  Your  President  elect  says  that  he  has  always  hated  slavery  as  bad  as  any  Aboli¬ 
tionist.  He  is  their  President;  and  they  and  you,  here  and  at  home,  vote  together,  and  form 
one  party.  You  do  the  same  thing  they  do ;  and  they  the  same  thing  you  do.  Then  what  is 
the  difference  between  you  ?  But  you  say  you  do  not  propose  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the 
States.  No,  sir.  You  only  intend  to  confine  it  to  its  present  limits,  in  a  kind  of  political 
quarantine,  as  a  leprous  curse,  too  infamous  to  blight,  with  its  touch  the  Territories  of  the 
Federal  Union. 

You  do  not  propose  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States.  No,  sir.  You  only  intend  to 
surround  it  by  hostile  States;  to  infest  its  borders  by  raids,  conspiracies,  and  underground 
railroad  appliances,  until  it  is  driven  inch  by  inch  from  its  present  possessions  to  the  extreme 
sections  ol  the  South,  where  starvation,  mutiny,  and  insurrection  will  save  you  the  trouble  of 
legislating  for  its  overthrow.  You  do  not  propose  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States.  No, 
sir.  You  only  intend  to  outlaw  the  slaveholder  from  the  common  protection  of  the  Govern¬ 
ment,  and  fix  a  brand  of  inferiority  upon  his  brow,  so  that  he  and  it  may  stand  degraded  be¬ 
fore  the  world  by  the  very  Government  instituted  for  the  protection  of  both. 

You  do  not  propose  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States.  Oh  !  no,  sir.  You  only  intend 
to  refuse  to  admit  any  more  slave  States  into  the  Union,  and  thereby  destroy  the  power  of 
the  South  in  the  Government,  by  making  her  powerless  and  helpless  to  protect  and  defend 
herself,  as  a  mere  apppndage  to  be  taxed  to  build  up  your  industry,  and  to  support  a  Govern¬ 
ment  that  denies  her  its  protection. 

You  do  not  propose  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States.  No,  sir.  You  only  propose  to 
show  the  people  of  the  South  how  much  you  love  them,  by  holding  them  and  their  institutions 
up  before  the  world  as  the  “  sum  of  all  villanies,”  and  a  scandal  to  all  civilization. 

Sir,  when  the  principle  is  to  be  recognized  and  permanently  engrafted  upon  the  policy  of 
this  country,  that  to  own  a  slave,  or  reside  in  a  slave  State,  is  to  forfeit  the  protection  of  this 
Government,  and  surrender  the  rights  and  equality  of  the  American  citizen  to  enter,  with  his 
property,  the  common  Territories  of  the  Union,  the  most  fatal  step  will  have  been  taken, 
which  must  eventuate  in  its  ultimate  extinction.  No  institution  can  survive  the  legal  odium 
of  such  a  policy.  And,  sir,  for  the  South  to  assent  to  this  policy  would  be  to  consent  to  her 
own  disgrace,  and  impress  upon  her  own  unsullied  name  and  honor  the  brand  of  shame  and 
infamy.  And  will  she  do  it?  Never,  sir  !  Never,  by  my  consent !  Never,  while  she  has  a 
weapon  to  wield  or  an  arrfi  to  defend!  And,  sir,  if  this  infamous  wrong  is  to  be  consum¬ 
mated;  if  we  are  to  live  in  this  Government,  and  be  permitted  to  wear  out  a  miserable  exist¬ 
ence.  with  inferiority,  disgrace,  and  shame  upon  us,  by  the  mere  sufference  of  a  dominant. 


9 


hostile,  and  persecuting  section  in  the  North,  k  were  better,  far  better,  that  no  son  of  the 
South  should  survive  such  a  dishonor  of  himself  and  country. 

But,  sir,  how  is  this  policy  to  be  carried  out  ?  Who  is  to  do  it ;  and  how  is  it  to  be  done  ? 
It  is  to  be  done,  as  I  have  already  shown,  by  a  sectional  organization,  holding  to  principles  in 
direct  violation  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  as  settled  and  determined  by  the 
highest  judicial  tribunal  of  the  land.  Before  the  institutions  of  the  people  of  the  South  can 
be  reached  ;  before  slavery  can  be  circumscribed  to  its  #present  limits;  before  the  slaveholder 
can  be  excluded  from  the  Territories,  placed  under  the  ban  of  the  Government,  and  outlawed 
from  his  rights  of  protection  and  equality,  the  decisions  of  the  courts  must  be  trampled  under 
foot,  the  Constitution  violated,  and  the  very  Government  itself  perverted  from  its  purposes  of 
protection  to  those  of  oppression.  Has  this  been  done?  Yes,  sir.  During  the  last  session  of 
Congress,  there  was  scarcely  a  member  of  the  Republican  party  upon  this  floor  who  did  not 
proclaim  publicly  his  determination  never  to  submit  to  this  decision;  and  to  place  that  inten¬ 
tion  beyond  all  doubt,  every  one  of  them  voted  to  apply  the  principles  of  the  Wilmot  proviso 
to  all  the  territorial  bills  introduced  by  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania,  [Mr.  Grow.] 

This,  sir,  was  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  this  country  when  the  Constitution  was  boast¬ 
fully  and  unblushingly  xiolated,  to  subserve  the  miserable  and  corrupt  ends  of  party.  And 
yet,  sir,  we  are  now  daily  told  by  these  conscientious  gentlemen  that  they  are  sworn  to  support 
the  Constitution  and  enforce  the  laws;  and  to  this  end  they  are  determined  to  use  the  Army 
and  the  Navy  against  the  seceding  States.  When  it  was  necessary  to  support  the  Constitu¬ 
tion  and  enforce  the  laws  recognizing  the  rights  and  the  equality  of  the  people  of  the  south¬ 
ern  States  in  the  Territories  of  the  United  Slates,  as  defined  in  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  their 
conscience  slept,  their  actions  were  to  be  regulated  by  a  higher  law  than  the  Constitution  they 
had  sworn  to  support. 

When  it  comes  to  murdering  southern  citizens  seeking  to  protect  themselves,  their  families, 
their  firesides,  their  all  worth  living  for,  or  worth  dying  for,  from  their  unjust  aggressions, 
their  consciences  impel  them  to  this  duty  with  a  unanimity  never  before  surpassed  in  this 
House. 

I  will  not  undertake  to  assign  motives  for  this  sudden  conversion  from  the  obligations  of 
that  higher  law,  as  defined  alone  in  the  anti-slavery  ethics  of  this  day  and  generation.  God 
alone,  sir,  can  look  into  the  human  heart  and  fully  comprehend  the  dark  and  vindictive  pas¬ 
sions  that  gather  there.  But  when  this  fell  purpose  is  to  be  consummated  by  the  inaugura¬ 
tion  of  civil  war  in  this  land,  these  motives  will  appear  written  in  the  blood  of  slaughtered 
thousands.  They  will  be  proclaimed  in  the  wail  of  widowhood  and  the  cry  of  orphanage  ; 
and  in  that  final  hour,  when  the  hopes  of  this  world  are  rapidly  receding  in  the  distance,  and 
those  of  another  opening  up  before  us,  they  will  “return  to  plague  their  inventors.” 

Now,  sir,  the  Republican  party,  having  trampled  upon  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
and  established  itself  upon  principles  in  direct  violation  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  what  is  to  be  the  next  step  in  this  crusade  against  the  institution  of  slavery  in  fifteen 
States  of  the  Confederacy  ? 

Let  us  now  assume  that  they  have  carried  out  their  policy  in  excluding  slavery  from  all  the 
Territories  of  the  United  States;  that  they  have  limited  its  extension  forever  to  its  present 
boundaries,  and  outlawed  the  slaveholder  from  the  protection  of  the  Government,  and  fixed 
upon  him  and  his  section,  irrevocably,  the  brand  of  inferiority  and  disgrace.  Will  they  now 
pause  at  this  point,  and  cease  their  war  upon  the  institution  as  it  exists  in  the  States?  Will 
they  be  content  when  they  have  shorn  the  slave  States  of  their  representative  power  iu  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States,  and  all  the  departments  of  the  Government?  Will  they  be 
content  when  they  have  placed  the  South  in  a  condition  of  vassalage,  to  be  taxed  at  their  dis¬ 
cretion  for  the  support  of  a  Government  hostile  to  their  institutions,  and  denying  to  its  citizens 
the  benefits  of  its  protection?  No,  sir.  The  most  humiliating  part  of  this  policy  about  to  be 
inaugurated  in  this  Government  has  yet  to  be  considered.  Under  the  operation  of  this  policy, 
it  is  to  be  the  delightful  privilege  of  a  southern  Representative  to  take  his  seat  in  this  Hall  to 
hear  his  constituents  denounced  by  abolition  orators  as  pirates  and  robbers.  In  vain  may  he 
raise  his  voice  of  protest  against  this  infamous  wrong  and  slander. 

Vie  have  been  told  by  the  gentleman  from  Ohio  [Mr.  Siierman]  that  the  people  of  the 
North  have  the  right  to  express  their  opinions  about  slavery — to  write  them,  to  speak  them, 
to  preach  them.  Freedom  of  speech,  freedom  of  the  press,  are  essential  to  the  preservation  of 
republican  institutions,  and  they  never  can  be,  and  never  will  be  surrendered.  Do  the  freedom 
of  speech  and  the  freedom  of  the  press  give  you  the  right,  sir,  to  assail,  with  impunity,  my 
good  name,  or  the  right  to  destroy  my  life,  liberty,  or  property?  If  not,  have  you  the  right, 
through  those  mediums,  to  create  a  public  sentiment  in  the  minds  of  others  that  will  lead  to 
that  result?  If  you  counsel  another  to  commit  murder,  or  arson,  or  any  other  crime,  the  law 
holds  you  responsible  for  the  offense,  and  for  it  you  may  be  confined  in  a  prison  or  executed 
upon  a  gallows.  Is  there  any  diffidence,  in  a  moral  point  of  view,  whether  you  counsel  the 


10 

act  in  person  or  create  a  public  sentiment  that  wijl  lead  to  its  perpetration  ?  \V71l  any  one 

upon  this  floor  deny  that  the  raid  of  John  Brown  and  his  clansmen,  upon  the  soil  of  Virginia, 
was  but  a  logical  result  of  the  fanatical  teachings  of  northern  Abolitionists?  It  was  but  the 
result  of  inflamed  passions  and  sympathies  working  to  a  practical  development. 

The  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press  were  never  intended  by  the  l'ramers  of  the  Govern¬ 
ment  to  lead  to  lawless  invasions  of  sister  States,  or  to  incite  insurrection  or  rebellion  among 
the  slave  population  of  the  South.  Nor  were  they  intended  to  be  used  for  the  subversion  or 
destruction  of  any  other  constitutional  right  of  the  American  citizen.  Would  this  plea  avail 
you  before  any  earthly  tribunal,  for  the  destruction  of  my  life  or  liberty?  These  are  personal 
rights,  guaranteed  by  the  Constitution.  The  right  of  property  is  equally  guaranteed  by  the 
Constitution.  What  right  have  you,  then,  in  this  Hall,  or  anywhere  else,  under  the  plea  of 
free  speech  and  a  free  press,  to  seek  the  destruction  of  my  rights  of  property?  None,  sir. 
And  yet,  for  the  last  two  years,  from  this  Hall,  from  the  Senate  Chamber,  from  the  press,  the 
pulpit,  the  school-room,  everywhere,  upon  the  highways  and  byways,  this  purpose  has  en¬ 
listed  with  fanatical  zeal  the  whole  anti-slavery  organization  of  the  free  States  of  the  North. 

Sir,  what  is  to  be  the  result  of  the  excitement  you  are  creating,  and  have  created  upon  this 
subject  ?  Will  it  exhaust  itself  in  the  partisan  harangue?  Will  it  explode  harmlessly  in  the 
air?  Or  will  it,  like  the  vapors  of  the  earth  when  caught  up  into  the  clouds,  concentrate 
into  a  revolutionary  storm  which  will  deluge  this  land  in  blood?  Sir,  that  will  be  the  con¬ 
clusion  of  the  whole  matter. 

But  you  protest  against  a  dismemberment  of  the  Union,  and  inscribe  upon  your  party  ban¬ 
ners:  “  The  Union  must  and  shall  be  preserved.5'  Answer  me  this  plain  question  :  if,  when 
the  Federal  Union  was  formed  by  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  the  propositions  had 
been  submitted  to  the  convention,  first,  that  no  citizen  from  a  slave  State,  with  his  slave  prop¬ 
erty,  should  thereafter  ever  be  permitted  to  enter  any  of  the  Territories  of  the  United  States; 
second,  that  to  own  a  slave  should  outlaw  him,  and  withhold  from  him  the  protection  of  the 
Government  ;  will  any  one  rise  here  in  his  place,  and  say  that  the  Federal  Union  ever  could 
have  been  formed  upon  such  a  basis?  Surely,  there  is  no  gentleman  in  this  House  so  far 
deluded  as  that.  Then,  it  the  Union  never  could  have  been  formed  upon  such  a  basis,  how 
can  any  man  of  reason  and  fairness  believe  for  one  moment  that  it  can  ever  be  maintained 
upon  such  a  basis?  You  violate  the  very  principle  upon  which  the  Federal  Union  was 
formed  ;  and  when  the  people  of  the  South  complain  and  protest  against  this  violation — yes, 
sir,  revolt  against  this  act  of  your  tyranny,  rapacity,  and  injustice — you  threaten  to  use  the 
Army  and  Navy  of  the  United  States  to  murder  them. 

Sir,  when  that  day  comes,  you  may  invade  our  peaceful  homes.  You  may  desolate  our  land. 
You  may  scatter  death  and  ruin  around.  You  may  become  butchers  for  the  vulture  and  raven; 
and  they  may  feed  and  fatten  upon  the  bodies  of  our  slaughtered  countrymen  ;  but  wherever 
the  tramp  of  your  legions  is  heard,  you  will  find  the  hardy  son  of  the  South  ready  to  meet  you 
in  the  charge  and  in  the  retreat;  and  wherever  you  go,  whether  advancing  or  flying,  you  will 
leave  behind  you  many  a  bloody  track  and  fallen  comrade.  Sir,  you  may  make  the  experi¬ 
ment  ;  but  you  can  never  conquer  the  South.  Their  ten  million  preyed,  free-born  necks  were 
never  made  to  wear  the  yoke  of  any  mortal  power  or  foe  against  tfreir  will.  You  can  con¬ 
quer  them  by  justice,  and  not  by  injustice  and  the  sword.  From  the  first  drop  of  blood  shed 
upon  southern  soil  by  armed  soldiery,  in  a  war  so  unjust  and  unholy  as  the  one  you  are  seek¬ 
ing  to  provoke,  would  spring  up,  if  necessary  to  avenge  it,  a  million  warriors.  Kentucky, 
brave,  gallant,  loyal,  patient  Kentucky,  will  not  hesitate  nor  falter  when  that  day  comes. 
Her  decision  then  will  be  as  prompt  as  her  conduct  to-day  is  patient  to  exhaust  the  last  effort 
at  peace  and  reconciliation.  Sir,  she  never  yet  has  failed  to  do  her  duty,  and  her  whole  duty, 
in  storm  or  in  sunshine.  She  never  yet  has  despaired  of  the  Republic;  but  if  you  force  this 
issue  upon  her  and  her  sisters  of  the  South,  remember  that  in  the  veins  of  her  children  courses 
the  blood  of  old  Virginia  ;  and  with  them,  when  the  final  struggle  comes,  she  will  share  com¬ 
mon  dangers,  common  rights,  common  glories,  a  common  destiny,  or  a  common  grave. 

Mr.  STANTON.  The  gentleman  from  Kentucky  has  slightly  mistaken  the  position  which 
I,  together  with  the  Republican  party,  have  assumed  in  regard  to  the  character  of  the  Consti¬ 
tution  of  the  country.  It  was  never  claimed,  so  far  as  I  know,  by  any  Republican,  that  this 
Union  was  formed  with  any  view  to  the  extension  or  extinction  of  slavery.  At  the  adoption 
of  the  Constitution  it  was  believed,  by  common  consent,  in  all  sections,  that  by  <  '  onomical 
causes,  aside  from  legislation,  not  through  the  instrumentality  of  the  Federal  Government, 
that  African  slavery  would  ultimately  become  extinct.  That  was  the  common  sentiment  of 
the  people  of  the  whole  country.  It  was  not  a  thing  to  be  accomplished  through  the  instru¬ 
mentality  of  congressional  legislation  or  Federal  action,  in  any  form  whatever. 

I  want  to  answer  another  question  of  the  gentleman  from  Kentucky,  when  he  inquired 
what  would  have  been  said  or  dene  if  it  had  been  proposed,  in  the  constitutional  convention, 
to  exclude  slaveholders,  with  their  property,  from  all  the  Territories.  I  will  respond,  that  the 


11 

Congress  of  the  Confederation,  long  before,  had  done  precisely  that  very  thing  by  a  unani¬ 
mous  vote  of  all  the  States,  in  every  fool  of  territory  then  subject  to  Congressional  control. 

Mr.  SIMMS.  I  am  not  discussing  the  opinions  of  the  gentleman  from  Ohio,  but  those  of 
the  Republican  party,  as  illustrated  by  its  leading  representative  men  upon  this  floor,  and  by 
its  leading?  pu-blic  journals  throughout  the  country,  and  as  reflected  by  its  President  elect. 
The  gentleman  did  not  vote  upon  the  Blake  resolutions,  which  declared  “the  chattelizing  of 
humanity  and  the  holding  of  persons  as  property  is  contrary  to  natural  justice  and  the  fun¬ 
damental  Tprinciples  of  our  political  system,  and  is  notoriously  a  reproach  to  our  country 
through  the  civilized  world  but  every  leading  representative  man  of  the  Republican  party 
upon  this  floor  did.  I  now  charge,  and  I  defy  the  gentleman  to  now  rise  in  his  place  and  de¬ 
ny  it,  that  nineteen  out  of  every  twenty  of  the  members  of  the  Republican  party  who  have 
addressed  this  House,  during  this  and  the  past  session  of  Congress,  have  denounced  slavery 
not  only  as  being  a  sin,  not  only  as  being  a  scandal  and  reproach  before  the  civilized  world,  but 
as  being  a  crime  within  itself,  infamous  and  intolerable.  The  gentleman  belongs  to  the 
available  committee  of  his  organization  in  this  House,  whose  opinions  may  be  injected  cau¬ 
tiously  into  southern  speeches,  as  the  party  at  this  particular  time  is  fighting  for  allies  in  the 
southern  States. 

Sir,  Henry  Wilson,  Senator  from  Massachusetts,  said,  in  a  speech  in  New  York,  in  1855, 
“that  when  this  Government  had  been  put  openly,  actually,  and  perpetually  on  the  side  of 
freedom,  that  the  Republican  party  would  have  glorious  allies  in  the  South,  and  that  these 
allies — brave,  generous,  gallant  men — would  in  their  own  way,  and  in  their  own  time,  rise 
upon  the  South,  and  lay  the  foundations  of  a  policy  of  emancipation,  which  would  give  free¬ 
dom  to  three  and  a  half  millions  of  men  in  America.”  What  the  Senator  from  Massachu¬ 
setts  that  day  said,  begins  to-day  to  look  like  fact  and  history,  from  the  demonstrations  we 
have  recently  seen  upon  this  floor,  by  certain  gentlemen  from  the  South.  As  for  the 
gentleman  from  Ohio,  [Mr.  Stanton,]  it  is  well  known  in  this  House  that  he  is  no  exponent 
of  the  real,  genuine  creed-of  faith  of  the  Republican  party. 

Mr.  STANTON.  I  am  an  orthodox  Republican. 

Mr.  SIMMS.  About  as  much  orthodox  as  your  distinguished  colleague,  [Mr.  Corwin,] 
who,  with  talents  that  should  place  him  iu  the  lead  of  his  party  in  this  House,  is  scarcely 
recognized  as  its  tail,  because  he  does  not  hold  that  negroology  is  the  great  science  of  the 
age,  and  that  the  American  Congress  should  consume  all  its  lime  in  extolling  the  virtues  of 
the  negro,  by  assailing  those  of  his  master. 

The  gentleman  from  Ohio,  in  answer  to  my  question,  is  equally  unfortunate  in  saying  that 
the  Congress  of  the  Confederation,  long  before  the  Constitution  was  made,  had  excluded 

slavery  from  every  inch  of  territory  then  subject  to  their  control.  In  the  first  place,  thefe 

never  was  an  inch  of  territory  subject  to  their  control  upon  this  continent,  until  the  State  of 
Virginia  ceded  the  then  territories  northwest  of  the  river  Ohio;  nor  did  the  confederated  Con¬ 
gress  ever  exclude  slavery  from  this  territory.  The  State  of  Virginia  herself  did  it  by  an  ex¬ 
press  provision  in  her  deed  of  cession  to  the  united  colonies.  The  ordinance  of  17S7,  passed 
by  thij  confederated  Congress,  was  a  mere  acceptance  of  this  deed  of  cession,  with  the  slavery 
restriction  contained  in™t.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  consequences  of  that  restriction, 
Virginia  alone  is  responsible  ior  them.  It  was  her  act,  and  not  that  of  the  confederated  Con¬ 
gress.  My  opinion  has  always  been  that  it  was  the  most  unwise  act  of  her  whole  history. 

It  was  the  first  establishment  of  a  geograhical  line  upon  this  subject,  and  laid  the  founda¬ 

tions  of  that  fruitful  source  from  whence  have  sprung  all  our  national  woes.  She  did  it, 
however,  from  the  best  of  motives;  and  these  should  sanctify  in  her  behalf  whatever  may 
have  been  her  error.  She  had  heaved  the  Revolution,  fought  its  battles,  and,  like  a  gener¬ 
ous  mother,  then  resolved  to  pay  its  debts,  by  endowing  the  young  Republic,  the  child  of  her 
valor,  with  an  inheritance  which  would  have  enriched  any  throne  in  Europe.  To  this  end, 
she  gave,  without  price,  two  hundred  million  acres  of  the  best  land  upon  which  the  sun  has 
ever  shone.  There  is  not  to-day  a  single  child  now  educated  in  all  the  free  schools  of  the 
five  States  now  formed  out  of  this  territory  that  does  not  owe  that  education  to  the  charity 
and  bounty  of  old  Virginia.  And,  sir,  how  has  her  generosity  been  requited  ?  These  very 
children  are  taught  in  these  schools,  as  admitted  by  the  gentleman  from  New  York,  [Mr. 
Conkling.]  to  hate  the  institutions  of  Virginia.  They  are  taught,  like  vipers,  to  turn  and 
sting  their  benefactress.  God  save  the  mark  ! 

The  gentleman  from  Ohio  says,  when  I  charge  that  the  Republican  party  was  organized 
upon  an  anti-slavery  basis,  and  that  that  party  holds  to  the  principle  that  the  Government 
itself  was  organized  upon  that  basis,  looking  to  the  ultimate  extinction  erf  slavery  (and  now. 
in  carrying  out  that  policy,  they  are  but  executing  the  original  purposes  of  those  who  formed 
the  Government)  that  I  am  slightly  mistaken.  Well,  sir,  I  think,  upon  investigation,  it  will 
be  found  that  the  slight  mistake  is  on  his  side.  I  have  already  charged  that  the  gentleman, 
with  all  his  talents  and  clearness,  is  not  orthodox  upon  the  Republican  creed.  I  did  not 


12 

desire  to  prove  this  upon  him,  because  it  may  defeat  him  at  home,  and  send  a  worse  man 
here  in  his  place.  Nevertheless,  we  are  now  seeking  the  truth  ;  and  hence  those  who  are  not 
posted  must  fall  or  keep  out  of  the  way.  We  should  be  frank  upon  this  occasion,  and  fight 
this  battle  on  the  square.  In  proof  of  the  charge  I  make  upon  the  Republican  parly,  I  submit 
an  authority  which  no  gentleman  on  that  side  of  the  Chamber  will  question  for  orthodoxy. 

I  read  from  the  speech  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  delivered  at  Cincinnati  in  September,  1859,  and  also 
■rom  his  published  debates  with  Mr.  Douglas,  all  revised  by  himself,  and  published  by  his 
party  as  campaign  documents: 

“  I  have  taken  up">n  myself,  in  the  name  of  some  of  you,  to  say  that  we  expect  upon  these  principles,  to  ultimately 
beat  them.  In  order  10  do  so,  I  think  vve  want,  and  must  have,  a  national  policy,  in  rt-gard  to  the  institution  of 
slavery  that  acknovrledges  and  dials  with  the  institution  as  being  wrong.  Whoever  desires  the  prevention  of  the 
spread  ot  s'a  very  and  the  nationa  ization  of  that  ins'itution,  yields  all  when  he  yields  to  any  policy  that  either  recog* 
nizes  elav*  ry  as  being  right  or  as  being  an  indifferent  thing.  Nothing  will  make  vo  t  successful  hut  setting  up  a  policy 
which  shall  treat  the  thing  as  being  wrong.  This  Government  is  expres*'y  charged  with  the  duty  of  providing  lor  the 
general  welfare.  We  believe  that  the  spreading  out  and  perpetuity  of  the  institution  of  slav  ry  impairs  ihe  general 
welfare.  We  believe,  nay,  we  kno  w,  that  this  is  the  only  thing  that  has  ever  threatened  the  perpetuity  of  the  Union 
itself;  to  repress  this  thing  we  think  is  to  provide  for  the  general  welfare.” 

Again : 

“  In  all  these  things  I  think  that  we  ought  to  keep  in  view  our  real  purpose,  and  in  none  do  anything  that  stands 
adverse  10  our  purpose.  But  suppose  we  shall  lake  up  some  man  and  put  him  upon  one  ei  d  or  the  o'her  of  our 
tieket,  who  declar  s  himself  against  us  in  regard  to  the  preven'ion  of  the  spread  of  slavery;  who  turns  up  his  nose 
and  says  he  is  ti  ed  of  hearing  anything  more  about  it ;  if  wc  nominate  him  upon  that  ground,  l  e  will  not  carry  a 
slave  state,  and  not  only  so,  but  that  portion  oj  our  men  who  are  high  strung  upon  the  principle  wt  reaUn  fight  f  t,  will 
r  o  go  tor  him  We  cannot  do  it;  we  cannot  get  our  men  to  vole  it.  I  speak  by  the  card,  that  we  cannot  give  the 
State  of  Illinois,  in  such  case,  by  fifty  thousand.” 

Again : 

“  I  Em  not,  in  the  first  place,  unaware  that  this  Government  has  endured  eishly-two  years,  half  slave  and  half  free. 
I  believe — and  that  is  what  I  meant  to  allude  to  ihen— I  believe  it  h«s  endured  because,  during  all  that  time,  un’il  the 
introduction  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  the  public  mind  did  lest  in  ihe  belief  that  slavery  was  in  the  eour  e  of  ult:mate 
extinction.  I  have  always  hated  slavery  I  think  as  much  as  any  Abolitionist.  I  alwajs  believed  that  everybody 
was  against  it,  and  that  it  was  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction.” 

Again  : 

“  And  now  as  to  the  judge’s  informer  #mt  because  I  wish  to  see  slavery  placed  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinc¬ 
tion— placed  where  our  fathers  originally  placed  it.” 

Again: 

“The  chief  and  real  purpose  of  the  Republican  party  is  eminently  conservative.  It  proposes  nothing  save  and 
except  to  restore  this  Govemn  ent  to  it?  original  tone  in  regard  to  this  element  of  slavery,  and  there  to  maintain  it, 
looking  10  no  furiher  change  in  reference  to  it  than  that  which  the  original  framers  of  the  Government  themse.vee 
expected  and  looked  forward  to.” 

Again  : 

“  From  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  down  to  1620  is  the  precise  period  of  our  history,  when  we  had  compara¬ 
tive  peace  upon  tnis  question.  It  was  when  a  policy  had  been  adopted  and  was  'prevaih- g  which  led  all  just  and 
right-minded  men  to  suppose  that  slavery-  was  generally  coming  to  an  end,  and  that  they  might  be  quiet  about  it, 
watt,  hing  it  as  it  expired.” 

Now,  sir,  was  I  slightly  mistaken,  when  I  stated  that  the  Republican  party  was  organized 
upon  an  anti-slavery  basis?  That  they  held  slavery  to  be  a  wrong  'L  That  they  prop#ed  to 
legislate  in  reference  to  it  as  a  wrong?  That  it  was  opposed  to  th®general  welfare,  and,  as 
such,  it  was  to  be  repressed  ?  and  lastly,  that  they  held  that  the  Government  itself  was 
organized  upon  an  anti-slavery  basis  ;  and  to  pursue  that  course  of  policy  towards  it  that 
would  lead  to  its  ultimate  extinction,  would  be  but  to  carry  out  the  original  purposes  of  those 
who  formed  the  Government  ? 

Whose  authority  shall  we  accept  upon  this  subject?  Mr.  Lincoln’s,  the  President  elect  of 
the  party,  or  the  gentleman  Lora  Ohio  ?  Will  some  Republican  brother  rise  in  his  place  and 
espouse  the  cause  of  the  gentleman  from  Ohio?  But  upon  this  occasion  Mr.  Lincoln  has 
the  offices  to  give  gentlemen.  What,  ‘‘none  so  poor  as  do  him  reverence?” 

Sir,  I  do  not  claim  for  my  section  any  right  or  privilege  that  I  would  not  be  willing  to¬ 
morrow  to  imperil  my  life  to  guaranty  to  every  other  section  of  our  common  country;  and 
in  this  declaration  I  know  I  reflect  the  sentiment  of  every  manly  heart  upon  the  soil  of  Ken¬ 
tucky.  “  Equal  rights  to  all,  and  exclusive  privileges  to  none” — these  are  her  mottoes  ;  these 
were  the  undying  mottoes  of  our  fathers;  and  from  them  this  Government  sprung  into  life 
and  being.  Deny  them,  and  it  must  perish,  for  the  life-giving  principle  and  the  death-dying 
stroke  must  emanate  from  the  same  hand.  Adopt  them  to-dayrand  our  dissevered  nation¬ 
ality  and  divided  country  will  spring  into  existence  and  unity  again  under  our  same  old 
banner  of  stars,  more  glorious  and  more  durable  for  the  misfortunes  through  which  we  have 
passed. 

Sir,  I  never  yet  have  felt  in  my  heart  a  feeling  of  disloyalty  to  the  Constitution  of  my 
country.  Kentucky  has  never  yet  given  birth  to  a  disunionist  per  sc.  We  love  our  country, 
and  would  die,  the  last  man  of  us,  under  its  flag;  but  the  time-honored  emblems  of  that  flag 
— justice,  equality,  and  fraternity — must  not  be  effaced.  If  so,  it  will  not  be  the  flag  of  our 


13 

fathers,  the  covenant  of  our  nationality.  It  will  be  the  sign-manual  of  the  despoiler,  the 
badge  of  our  enslavement,  and  as  such  we  will  resist  it  to  the  death. 

Sir,  in  my  district  repose  at  ihis  moment  the  ashes  of  the  immortal^  Clay.  Now,  and  in 
this  presence,  and  upon  such  an  occasion  as  this,  were  I  unmindful  ol  the  solemn  responsi¬ 
bilities  resting  upon  me,  I  should  expect  a  voice  of  rebuke  from  the  tomb  of  the  mighty  dead. 

I  will  cling  to  every  hope  that  justice  may  yet  be  done,  and  from  our  divided  councils  may 
yet  spring  some  common  principle  of  adjustment,  alike  just  and  honorable  to  every  section, 
upon  which  we  may  yet  unite  hand  in  hand  and  heart  in  heart,  as  our  fathers  stood  before 
us.  If  not,  the  fault  will  be  yours  not  ours,  and  upon  your  head  must  rest  the  responsibility. 

Sir,  I  am  a  son  of  the  South.  There  is  not  a  hope  nor  aspiration  of  my  soul  that  does 
not  bind  me  to  her  and  her  destiny.  I  am  jealous  of  her  honor.  I  will  never  surrender  it. 
There  is  not  a  hill  nor  a  dale  nor  a  battle-field  where  glory  has  been  won,  from  the  Gulf-stream 
in  the  South,  to  the  far  distant  regions  of  the  North,  where  the  blood  of  her  children  has 
not  been  poured  out  like  water.  These  are  the  pledges  of  loyalty  she  has  given  to  her  coun¬ 
try.  They  are  hers.  No  malice  can  assail  them;  no  injustice  can  impair  or  destroy  them. 
They  will  stand  forever  in  history  as  imperishable  testimonials  of  her  loyalty  and  patriotism. 
They  plead  to-day  in  her  behalf, 

,  “  Like  ang?ls  trumpet  tongued  against 

The  deep  damnation  of  her  taking  ofF1 

And  yet,  sir,  with  all  (These  facts  beaming  from  every  page  of  our  history,  what  has  been 
the  tieatment  she  has  received  in  this  Hall?  What  is  to  be  the  future  policy  of  this  Gov¬ 
ernment  towards  her?  For  two  years,  as  one  of  the  Representatives  of  her  people,  I  hare 
been  compelled  to  sit  here  and  hear  every  epithet  that  obscenity  could  invent  and  malice 
prefer,  hurled  in  denunciation  and  hate  upon  the  heads  of  my  constituents — robber,  pirate, 
slave-driver,  infamous,  villanous,  hell-destined,  Heaven-forsaken — these  are  the  stereotyped 
phrases  of  our  brethren  on  that  side  of  the  House.  Sir,  if  a  stranger  a  hundred  years  hence 
should  open  the  Congressional  Globe  of  this  and  the  last  session  of  Congress,  and  he  were 
ignorant  of  the  character  and  institutions  of  the  people  of  the  South,  he  would  be  convinced 
that  they  were  without  a  virtue;  mere  fiends  in  human  shape,  with  their  victims  smarting 
under  the  lash  from  morn  till  night.  Sir,  is  this  just;  can  it  be  endured?  What  man  of 
honor  can  submit  to  this?  I  put  the  question  to  you  on  that  side  of  the  House  :  what  degra¬ 
dation  can  be  deeper?  And  yet,  sir,  I  have  been  compelled  to  endure  it.  My  lips  have  been 
sealed  under  the  rules  of  this  House,  and  I  have  heard  your  denunciations,  when,  had  you 
uttered  them  in  my  presence  out  of  this  Chamber,  I  would  have  hurled  them  back  in  your 
throat  as  slanderous,  false,  and  foul.  Not  content  with  this,  you  now  propose  to  outlaw  us 
from  the  protection  of  the  Government  and  to  exclude  us,  because  of  our  institutions,  from 
its  common  Territories.  It  is  not  enough  for  you  to  seek  to  fix  upon  us,  and  our  institutions, 
the  brand  of  opprobrium — the  Government  must  do  it ;  and  whenever  we  look  upon  its  flag 
fluttering  to  the  breeze,  this  must  remind  us  of  our  degradation  and  shame.  Do  you  suppose 
we  care  the  snap  of  my  finger  for  the  small,  barren  waste  which  lies  south  of  this  line  of  36° 
30',  as  a  mere  question  o^  territory  ?  No,  sir.  I  would  not  give  this  Union  for  ten  thousand 
such  territories.  But  in  this  adjustment  is  involved  a  principle  vital  to  our  existence,  vital 
to  our  honor,  high  as  the  Government  itself,  and  which  never  can  be  surrendered.  Protec¬ 
tion,  equality,  these  are  the  prices  of  allegiance  to  every  Government;  and*  the  Government 
that  exacts  the  one  and  denies  the  other,  is  a  sham  and  a  cheat.  These,  sir,  we  will  demand, 
on  land  and  on  sea,  wherever  the  flag  of  the  Union  floats. 

I  might  demand  of  the  gentleman  from  Ohio,  slightly  deluded  as  he  is  upon  the  slavery 
question,  whether  any  honorable  man  could  accept  less?  Do  you  make  slavery  an  objection? 
Why,  sir,  there  is  scarcely  an  African  upon  this  continent  whose  ancestors  your  fathers  did 
not  bring  into  this  country  and  sell  into  the  South.  You  have  got  the  money,  and  we  have 
got  the  slaves.  If  slavery  be  a  sin,  how  much  better  are  you  than  we?  Take  the  case  put 
by  the  gentleman  from  North  Carolina,  [Mr.  Gilmer.]  I  would  carry  it  out  a  little  further. 
When  this  Government  was  organized,  slavery  existed  in  all  the  States  except  one.  It  had 
been  recognized  and  protected  by  all  the  united  colonies,  for  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  bnlore  the  Government  was  formed.  Since  that  time,  you  have  abolished  slavery  in  the 
northern  States,  by  a  very  peculiar  style  of  emancipation.  Before  your  laws  of  emancipation 
took  effect,  you  transferred  your  slaves  to  the  South,  and  sold  them  for  the  money.  When 
your  laws  took  effect  there  were  no  slaves  to  claim  their  benefit;  they  could  not  reach  the  cash 
in  your  pockets.  I  merely  remind  you  of  this  because  we  do  not  always  “see  ourselves  as 
others  see  us;  ”  and,  too,  1  would  have  you  receive  all  the  glory  of  such  metallic  philanthropy. 
This  was  the  condition  of  things  at  the  beginning.  Now  you  represent  Mr.  North,  and  my 
friend  here  by  my  side,  Mr.  South — two  clever  old  gentlemen.  Under  that  higher  law,  to 
ihultiply  and  replenish  the  earth,  you  moved  on  harmoniously.  You  peopled  and  settled  all 
your  Territories.  After  a  while  you  acquired  the  Louisiana  purchase.  Mr.  North  had  sold 
his  negroes  to  Mr.  South.  With  age,  as  his  memory  fail*,  his  piety  increases.  He  insists  that 


14 

this  territory  shall  be  divided.  “  Very  well,”  says  Mr.  South,  “  anything  for  peace.”  The 
division  is  made.  The  territory  from  Mexico  is  acquired.  “Let  us  divide  as  before,  brother 
North,”  says  Mr.  South.  “  No,  sir,”  replies  brother  North,  “  I  demand  all,  and  that  neither 
you  nor  your  children  shall  ever  have  one  inch  of  it.”  “  Why  did  we  not  purchase  it  jointly 
with  our  common  blood  and  treasure?”  “  Yes,  sir,”  replies  brother  North  ;  “  but  you  have 
slaves.  Slavery  is  sinful ;  it  is  an  abomination  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord.  There  can  be  no 
such  thing  as  property  in  man.”  “  What,”  says  Mr.  South,  “  did  you  not  sell  me  your  slaves  ? 
Have  you  not  still  my  money  for  them  ?  Were  they  property  when  you  sold  them,  and  now, 
because  you  can  no  longer  make  money  out  of  the  African  slave  trade,  do  you  propose  to  make 
up  for  this  by  playing  grab  upqn  all  the  joint  territories  purchased  as  much  by  the  blood  of  my 
children  as  yours?  You  had  a  monopoly  of  the  slave  trade  for  twenty  years.  Does  your 
avarice  shape  your  censcience  ?  If  so,  brother  North,  you  may  deceive  men  ;  you  may  deceive 
your  own  children  ;  because  it  is  their  interest  to  be  deceived  ;  and  if  they  are  like  their  fa¬ 
thers,  they  never  will  forget  to  urge  their  conscience  when  a  dollar  is  to  be  made.  But  you 
cannot  deceive  God.  If  slavery  be  sinful,  you  still  have  the  price  of  it  in  your  pocket.  Re¬ 
member  this:  God  is  just.”  “ But,”  says  brother  North,  u  I  have  more  children  than  you: 
we  can  out-vote  you,  and  we  will  decide  the  question  at  the  ballot-box.”  “  But,”  says  Mr. 
South,  “  this  is  the  highwayman’s  plea.  Where  is  your  conscience  now  ?  Does  it  sleep  ? 
And  this,  too,  will  be  a  breach  of  our  solemn  covenant.  How  about  the  money  I  paid  you 
for  your  slaves?  ”  “  Covenants,”  says  Mr.  North,  “what  care  I  for  covenants?  I  am  a  dis¬ 

ciple  of  the  higher  law.  I  keep  no  covenant,  except  that  which  teaches  me  to  keep  all  I  have 
got,  and  to  get  all  I  can;  and,  as  to  the  money,  ‘I  do  not  like  this  paying  back  ;  ’tis  a  double 
trouble ;  ’ 

“  ‘  Honor  pricks  me  on.5  55 

“  Yea,  but,”  says  Mr.  South,  “how  if  honor  prick  you  off  when  you  come  on  ?  how  then? 
Can  honor  set  to  a  leg  ?  No.  Or  an  arm  ?  No.  Or  take  away  the  grief  of  a  wound  ?  No. 
Honor  hath  no  skill  in  surgery  then.5' 

Mr.  Chairman,  there  is  a  moral  as  well  as  wit  in  these  reflections.  If  you  have  resolved 
that  there  is  more  power  in  the  Army  and  Navy  to  hold  these  States  in  unity  and  peace,  than 
in  fraternal  ties  and  public  justice,  and  you  have  determined  to  make  the  experiment  with  the 
seceding  States  upon  a  point  of  honor,  remember  that  “  honor  hath  no  skill  in  surgery.”  In¬ 
stead  of  this  “  trim  reckoning”  between  bone  ®f  our  bone  and  flesh  of  our  flesh.  I  would  com¬ 
mend  the  golden  rule,  which  will  alike  save  your  honor,  theirs,  and  ours. 

What  kind  of  an  honor  is  that  which  demands  a  brother’s  blood?  If  successful,  will  it 
compensate  for  the  ruin  you  have  brought  upon  your  country  ?  If  defeated,  what  plea  will 
you  make  before  men  and  high  Heaven  with  the  blood  of  your  brother  upon  your  hand  ? 

Mr.  Chairman,  if  every  proposition  for  an  adjustment  should  fail,  I  know  of  no  one  upon 
this  floor  who  will  have  contributed  more  to  that  result  than  the  gentleman  from  Tennessee, 
[Mr.  Etheridge.]  He  has  announced  in  this  House  that  he  will  take  the  Crittenden  proposi¬ 
tion  ;  if  he  cannot  get  that,  he  will  take  his  own  proposition  ;  if  he  .cannot  get  that,  he  will 
take  the  report  of  the  committee  of  thirty-three;  and,  if  he  cannot  get  that,  he  will  take 
nothing,  and  go  home  to  put  down  all  discontent  in  the  South  by  power  and  by  the  sword. 
Now,  sir,  in  my  judgment,  any  gentleman  from  the  South  who  takes  that  position  is  the  worst 
enemy  of  the  Union  upon  this  floor.  Will  the  States  that  have  withdrawn  from  the  Union, 
ever  return,  unless  you  adopt  such  an  adjustment  as  will  induce  them  to  return?  Never, 
never,  sir.  Can  it  be  expected  that  the  North  will  grant  anything,  when  southern  Represen¬ 
tatives  will  be  content  with  nothing.  Sir,  there  is  no  power  that  can  force  the  Republican 
party  of  this  House  to  accept  the  Crittenden  proposition,  with  declarations  like  these  uttered 
by  southern  men  upon  this  floor.  What  is  to  be  the  effect  ?  The  effect,  sir,  will  be  to  confirm 
a  disruption  of  the  Union,  or  to  deliver  the  South  over,  bound  hand  and  foot,  to  her  enemies. 

Mr.  STOKES.  I  desire  to  correct  a  misapprehension.  I  hope  the  gentleman  from  Ken¬ 
tucky  will  not  refuse  me  that  privilege. 

Mr.  SIMMS.  Certainly  not,  sir. 

Mr.  STOKES.  My  colleague  stated  here  in  his  place  that  he  would  vote  for  the  Critten¬ 
den  proposition ;  that  he  would  vote  for  the  border-States  proposition ;  that  he  would  support 
the  proposition  presented  by  the  chairman  of  the  committee  of  thirty-three;  that,  if  he  could 
not  l  -at,  rather  than  see  the  Union  severed  in  twain,  he  would  take  nothing  and  go  home, 
and  .ad  before  the  people  with  the  Constitution  in  one  hand  and  his  sword  in  the  other,  to 
fight  for  the  Constitution  and  Union.  And  I  will  say  to  the  gentleman  from  Kentucky,  that 
the  very  best  men  we  have  in  the  State  of  Kentucky  will  hold  to  that  doctrine  rather  than 
see  the  Union  destroyed.  t 

Mr.  SIMMS.  I  do  not  see  what  misapprehension  the  gentleman  has  corrected.  He  has* 
said  his  colleague  stated  precisely  what  I  imputed  to  him.  The  great  difficulty  with  the  gen¬ 
tleman  and  his  colleague  is,  that  they  do  not  seem  to  know  that  the  Union  is  already  divided. 


I 


15 

It  is  not  a  question  to  maintain  tke  Union  as  it  is  merely  ;  but  to  restore  it  to  what  it  was  be¬ 
fore  its  dismemberment.  Does  not  the  gentleman  know  that  the  withdrawing  States  have 
already  organized  a  provisional  government ;  that  it  is  not  only  a  government  de  facto ,  but  also 
de  jure  ?  Does  he  not  know  that  the  people  who  have  organized  this  new  government  will 
standby  it  to  the  death;  that  they  never  will  enter  the  Federal  Union  again  except  upon  a 
satisfactory  adjustment  of  existing  difficulties?  Does  he  expect  to  accomplish  this  adjust¬ 
ment  by  telling  the  people  of  the  North  he  will  be  satisfied  with  nothing?  Does  he  expect 
to  get  what  he  wants  by  surrendering  what  he  claims  upon  this  floor  ?  And  will  it  mend  the 
matter  any  to  go  home  with  the  Constitution  in  one  hand  and  his  sword  in  the  other,  to  des¬ 
cant  eloquently  upon  some  stump  before  the  yeomanry  of  Tennessee?  This  is  the  place,  sir, 
to  contend  for  the  rights  of  your  [section.  Do  not  surrender  them,  and  then  talk  of  going 
home  with  the  Constitution  in  one  hand  and  the  sword  in  the  other.  As  for  Kentucky,  she 
will  never  compound  her  rights  with  her  enemies — surrender  them  here,  and  talk  of  going 
home  to  do  this  or  that.  Her  people  demand  that  her  rights  and  honor  be  maintained  here 
upon  this  floor,  and  the  Representatives  of  hers  who  would  betray  her  in  this  hour  will  meet 
her  scorn  and  contempt. 

Mr.  CLARK,  of  Missouri.  I  move  that  the  time  of  the  gentleman  be  extended. 

Mr.  SIMMS.  I  am  obliged  to  the  House. 

Mr.  Speaker,  whatever  may  have  been  the  misfortunes  of  our  country,  there  is  one  class  of  our 
fellow-citizens  who  will  stand  acquitted  beforepieaven  and  earth.  I  mean  the  brave  and  true 
Democracy  of  the  North.  For  years,  long  years,  they  have  stood  in  the  breach  in  resistance  to 
fanaticism  with  a  devotion  and  courage  worthy  of  the  crown  of  martyrdom.  They  have  fallen 
at  last,  “  but  they  have  fallen  with  their  backs  to  the  field  and  their  feet  to  the  foe.” 

Mr.  Speaker,  is  there  any  gentleman  upon  this  floor  who  believes  for  one  moment,  that  the 
mere  power  of  a  paper  Constitution  can  hold  this  Union  together,  or  that  the  sword  can  recon¬ 
struct  it  when  dismembered  ?  Sir,  this  Government  was  not  formed  by  force.  It  can  never  be 
maintained  by  force.  It  was  the  voluntary  creation  of  sovereign  States.  It  sprung  into  life  and 
being  by  the  voluntary  acts  of  the  States  ratifying  the  Constitution  that  formed  it,  and  it  can 
only  endure  while  it  is  their  voluntary  choice.  It  is  not  upheld  by,  nor  is  it  dependent  for  its 
duration  upon,  any  inherent^power  of  its  own.  The  blessings  it  confers  upon  the  millions  sub¬ 
ject  to  it,  create  its  strength.  They  repay  its  protection  with  affection  and  loyalty.  These, 
sir,  are  the  pillars  of  its  strength.  They  will  endure  forever,  while  your  Government  is  just 
Deny  this,  and  you  sap  the  very  foundations  upon  which  it  is  constructed. 

Sir,  it  is  in  vindication  of  this  principle  that  the  right  of  revolution  underlies  all  free  Gov¬ 
ernments.  This  right  I  hold  to  be  imperishable  and  indestructible.  None  but  tyrants  and 
despots  have  ever  denied  it.  It  ha^been  asserted  by  every  civilized  nation  upon  the  habitable 
globe.  It  has  overturned  principalities  and  powers,  and  remains  to-day  where  God  placed  it — 
in  the  unfettered  arms  and  brave  hearts  of  every  people  resolved  to  be  free.  This  plea  against 
the  right  of  revolution  was  the  plea  of  Charles  I,  when  demanding  subsidies  from  the  toiling 
millions  to  fill  the  coffers  of  a  corrupt  Court.  It  was  the  plea  of  George  III,  seeking  to  rivet 
the  chains  of  a  despotism  upon  the  colonies  of  America.  Yet  the  principle  was  asserted  in 
both  cases.  It  brought  the  head  of  Charles  to  the  block,  and  released  the  infant  limbs  of  the 
colonies  from  the  thraldom  of  British  power.  • 

For  the  time,  sir,  armed  legions  may  trample  upon  it,  but  it  will  spring  into  life  again  with 
every  new  necessity,  while  a  single  inspiration  of  Divinity,  manhood,  or  honor  resides  in  the 
human  breast.  Every  age  has  its  Brutus,  and  the  cause  of  the  chaste  Lucrece  still  survives 
the  wreck  and  fall  of  empires.  If  you  would  avoid  revolution,  so  act  as  to  avoid  its  necessity. 
The  question  before  us  to-day,  stripped  of  all  rubbish  and  metaphysical  jargon,  is  simply  one 
of  fact.  It  is,  first,  peace  and  reunion  ;  second,  peace  and  separation  ;  or,  third,  separation  and 
war.  Disguise  it  as  we  may,  these  are  the  only  issues  upon  which  we  are  called  to  act.  If 
we  preserve  peace,  we  preserve  every  chance  of  a  reconstruction  of  the  Union.  If  we  resort 
to  war,  we  will  wickedly  throw  away  every  such  chance,  and  forever  confirm  the  present  dis¬ 
ruption  of  the  Government. 

But  you  say  you  desire  only  to  enforce  the  laws.  Sir,  tiiis  plea  of  enforcing  the  laws  means 
war  in  this  instance,  and  it  means  nothing  else.  Why,  then,  not  call  it  by  its  proper  name? 

Then,  sir,  which  of  the  alternatives  will  we  accept — peace  and  reunion  ?  Will  you  reject 
this?  Separation  and  peace.  Will  you  reject  this,  too  ?  If  so,  then  you  mean  to  force  upon 
the  people  of  the  South  the  third  alternative;  which  means  separation,  and  war  to  the  knife, 
to  deafh,  to  extermination. 

Mr.  Speaker,  is  this  the  solemn  resolve  of  the  North  ?  Will  nothing  less  than  southern 
blood,  or  an  unconditional  and  disgraceful  submission  to  your  unholy  wrongs  and  aggressions 
upon  our  rights  and  equality,  appease  your  purpose?  Then  let  it  be  so  ;  but  before  you  take 
this  final  step,  let  me  here  in  my  place,  as  the  Representative  of  a  people  who  never  quailed 
before  the  storm  in  the  darkest  and  most  trying  hour  of  the  past ;  who  never  faltered  in  their 


16 

devotion  to  the  Constitution  of  the  country,  or  turned  their  back  upon  friend  or  foe,  enter  before 
the  world  and  high  Heaven  my  solemn  protest  against  this  act. 

I  believe,  sir,  that  I  reflect  the  sentiment  of  every  manly  heart  upon  the  soil  of  Kentucky, 
when  I  say,  in  any  alternative,  give  us  peace.  We  have  weapons,  we  have  strong  arms  and 
brave  hearts,  but,  sir,  they  are  for  our  defense,  for  our  enemies  abroad,  and  not  for  the  murder 
of  our  brothers  and  kindred.  Do  not,  then,  force  this  issue  upon  us.  If  you  do,  I  tell  you 
row,  before  God  and  the  universe,  we  will  be  guiltless  of  the  calamities  you  will  bring  upon 
our  country.  If  still  your  purpose  is  inexorable,  I  tell  you  now  by  that  act  you  will  have 
broken  the  last  link  that  binds  this  Confederacy  together,  as  between  the  States  of  the  South 
and  the  North.  You  will  have  done  more  than  that.  You  will  have  dug  a  gulf  between 
them  where  nothing  but  hate,  but  revenge,  will  cross,  wide  as  that  which  intervenes  between 
right  and  wrong,  between  freedom  and  slavery.  And  still  worse,  and  more  than  this,  you 
will  have  done.  You  will  have  performed  but  the  first  act  in  the  bloodiest  tragedy  the  world 
has  ever  seen.  Brennus  like,  you  will  have  thrown  your  sword  into  the  scale,  and  demanded 
that  southern  blood  and  southern  hearts  shall  weigh  it  down  to  satisfy  your  injustice,  your 
vengeance,  and  cupidity.  And,  sir,  when  that  day  comes,  and  come  it  must  if  force  and 
coercion  is  to  be  the  policy  of  this  Government,  the  last  ray  of  adjustment  and  union  will 
have  faded  away,  and  the  cause  of  the  South  will  become  a  common  cause. 

Did  God,  in  his  providence,  bless  us  with  this  fairest  possession  of  the  earth  that  we  might 
grow  up  in  it,  to  our  present  power  and  position  among  the  nations  of  the  world,  for  no  other 
purpose  than  that  we  might  show  our  skill  in  butchering  each  other,  and  thereby  prove  our¬ 
selves  the  vilest  ingrates  that  ever  flourished  upon  his  bounty  or  insulted  his  providence?  God 
forbid  that  we  should  do  this  thing.  Sir,  if  this  is  to  be  our  last  act  in  the  great  drama  of 
human  events,  let  the  historian  refuse  to  write.  Let  us  be  accursed  and  forgotten  among  the 
nations  of  the  earth.  Sir,  I  undertake  to  speak  for  Kentucky  at  this  moment.  Her  voice  is 
for  peace,  for  conciliation.  She  demands  an  adjustment  of  existing  difficulties  alike  just  and 
honorable  to  every  section.  She  demands  for  herself  and  her  people  their  life,  their  liberty, 
their  property,  justice,  protection,  and  equality  under  the  flag  of  the  Union,  wherever  it  floats. 
If  these  just  expectations  are  denied  her,  she  then,  with  bleeding  heart  and  earnest  purpose, 
demands  that,  while  fraternal  ties  are  breaking,  and  the  word  farewell  still  lingers  upon  kin 
dred  lips,  that  you  shall  not  commence  the  work  of  slaughter  and  death.  Sir,  in  her  namil 
demand  this  ;  and  if  you  refuse  it,  remember  when  our  land  is  rent  by  factions;  when  we  shall 
scent  the  tainted  air  of  the  battle  field  ;  when  we  shall  behold  that  flag,  once  the  emblem  of 
our  united  affections,  waving  above  the  bloody  sod  and  the  death-strewn  deck,  where  slaugh¬ 
tered  kindred  lay  one  upon  another  in  “moldering  heaps:”  remember  then,  and  in  that  hour,, 
that  the  voice  of  Kentucky  was  for  justice,  equality,  and  peace. 


H.  Steam  Job  Press,  li  sL,  near  7ua:  VT ashingtoss* 


